


A Matter Of Life And Death

by MadAndy



Category: Iron Maiden
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-22 15:08:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 55,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6084288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadAndy/pseuds/MadAndy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He could call someone, he supposed, despite the early hour; it would be good to hear another voice right now, to laugh and plan and pretend that this uneasy... restlessness... wasn't bothering him at all.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>(Sequel to Journeyman)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Matter Of Life And Death

**Author's Note:**

> Begun in 2006

****

_~ Introduction ~_

_A Matter of Life And Death_

Steve wandered through the house, and found himself followed by a ghost of unease.

It had been building for a few days now; since Christmas, in fact. So far he’d put it down to just the season, the kids missing their mother, the untidy scramble and soggy anti-climax of the post-festive period. And it had been raining, which never helped; that thin, cold wet that soaked everything but washed nothing away, just spread a pervasive damp throughout the entire house and made him think he was going to wake up one morning with mould on his nose.

He flicked a length of tarnished golden tinsel that sagged around a doorframe with a fingertip, and frowned; not even twelfth night, and already the decorations looked tired. Soon be time to put them all away again, and buckle down to another year’s hard work.

Not yet, though. Kids still asleep, and they’d be terribly upset if they came down and found him dismantling the careful display that they’d spent so long assembling; that thought did bring a smile to his face, albeit a brief one. 

He wandered into the kitchen, and stared morosely out of the window at the wintry pre-dawn garden for a moment. Everything dripped, the skeletons of autumn dark with the weight of the rain, and a mist that clung despite the persistent drizzle. He could call someone, he supposed, despite the early hour; it would be good to hear another voice right now, to laugh and plan and pretend that this uneasy... restlessness... wasn’t bothering him at all. It felt like a gathering storm, a weight on his mind that made his sinuses prickle, the fine hairs on the back of his neck curl with awareness - but when he turned to eye the barometer it proclaimed that the weather, although gloomy, would improve. The needle was on its way past ‘rain’ and heading in a determined fashion for ‘set fair’; looked like it wasn’t an approaching storm that had him so agitated, then.

A frown creased his face, and he shut his eyes to better tune in what he thought of as his ‘other’ senses.

Nope, nothing unusual there, either. The steady tick-tock of the supernatural world was reassuring, nothing but the usual flicker of activity around his home as some of the smaller denizens of Faery made their rounds and kept an eye on him and the family. He’d been annoyed about that when he’d first discovered it. But then, as Pan had told him with an arch of a shaggy brow and a flash of amber eyes when he made a quick trip to Faery to complain, he couldn’t expect a demi-God to take up residence in his summerhouse just to make sure that everything was fine. If there was trouble they would be there, he could rely on that.

He supposed that he could, and forced himself to sit down at the table to brood.

But something was wrong. He knew it, he could feel it, and if he didn’t get to the bottom of it then it was going to drive him up the wall and round the bend - no matter how often he’d sworn to himself that he was going to keep both feet in this world, thank you very much, his mind on his music and his family. Here in the real world where he knew how it all worked, and anything nasty could be sorted by a good lawyer.

A fast-revved engine and the sound of tyres flinging gravel far and wide from his driveway brought him back to himself with a jolt. Who the hell was finding it necessary to do handbrake turns outside his kitchen at - his eyes flicked to the illuminated display over the cooker, and he scowled - half past six on a sunday morning?

They were going to get a piece of his--

Thoughts scattered again at the frantic hammering on the door, the solid oak shuddering in its frame with the force. Steve flung himself to his feet, scowl still firmly fixed, and threw the bolts with unecessary vigour; this was bloody ridiculous, and the whole house would be awake in a minute. 

Whatever he’d expected to see it wasn’t Nicko, white faced under his tan, gaunt and shaking, eyes wide with distress and looking as though he hadn’t slept for a week. As soon as the door was open he was through it, bunching Steve’s shirt in both hands and almost lifting his friend from the floor in his frenzy.

“They’re killing them, ‘Arry,” he croaked, his voice hoarse, “they’re killin’ ‘em all - and I can hear them screaming.”

And with that, he passed out in a heap at Steve’s feet.

_~~tbc~~_


	2. Only The Good Die Young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Pan and the others weren't able to make it through to either warn or ask for help, well, that boded even worse. Even Gods could die.

_****_

_~ Chapter One ~_

_Only The Good Die Young_

By the time Nicko came round the house was in chaos. His arrival had indeed woken everyone, and Elizabeth had been the first one of the children into the kitchen to see what was going on. Her shriek at the sight of her uncle Nicko sprawled in a heap on the floor had been loud enough to bring the rest of the family at a run; Steve suddenly had his hands full of panicking children, hysterical teenagers, and couldn’t hear himself think.

“Enough!” he roared, ignoring the black look Lauren shot him from where she was trying to comfort the youngest two. “Lauren, take the little ones into the living room - Nate, give us a hand. Callie, call an ambulance.”

Nicko stirred, and muttered something. Steve crouched over him, then swore between his teeth when he figured out what his friend was saying.

“Cal, scrub that. No ambulance.”

“But dad!”

“I know, I know. Put the kettle on, there’s a girl.”

She opened her mouth to object - seventeen, Steve thought, was such a bloody horrible age - but snapped her jaw shut when she saw his expression, and turned to put the kettle on with only a minimum of grumbling under her breath. Between Steve and Nathaniel they got Nicko into a chair, and he pressed his face into his hands with a groan. 

“Tea, uncle Nicko?” said Callie, and slid a mug across the table to him. His smile was small but grateful, even if his expression was still haunted.

“Thanks love. Now I need to have a word with your dad, so would you and your brother give us a minute?”

Steve shooed the pair into the living room, and took a moment to issue a few orders; with any luck by the time Nicko had told him what the hell was going on his brood would be washed, dressed and ready for breakfast. Although the flash in Lauren’s eye indicated that he was probably going to hear about this, later; not for the first time he felt a stab of pain at the fervent wish that their mother was still here. She would have coped with all this magnificently....

He closed the kitchen door behind him and leaned on it for a moment, letting out a long sigh that shook him to his bones. This - whatever ‘this’was going to turn out to be - must be what he’d been anticipating. Because now he was looking at Nicko’s back, seeing the shoulders shake and the tears fall on his kitchen table, every sense he had was on full alert. Something nasty was coming, and it was coming fast.

He sat opposite his friend and gently parted his hands, tilted his head to stare straight into the agonised gaze.

“OK Nick. You’ve frightened my family, made a mess of my drive and scared the crap out of the cat. My daughter’s going to bollock me six ways till sunday - so what’s it all about?”

Nicko straightened up a bit, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and took a big gulp of tea.

“I’ve been having nightmares, Harry....”

~*~

Nicko bolted up in the dark, sheets clinging to the cold sweat of his body. The dream still hung around his mind, dark tendrils of the terror that had ripped into his sleep holding him in their wet, clammy grip. It had been something about the Fae--

He curled up, buried his face in his hands, and shook. Now he knew how Harry had felt for all those years; he knew - no idea how he knew, but he did - that what he was dreaming was real. Somewhere, not here, but somewhere the terrible things he’d seen were actually happening; the question was, could he do anything about it? 

Preferably, of course, before he went insane.

Nicko shook out the covers, slipped down to curl into his wife’s warm back, and tried to get back to sleep. Just a dream. It couldn’t hurt him here.

~*~

“That was the first one. It wasn’t too clear, you know? Summat bad, but it was real hard to see clear - like static, interference on the signal.”

Steve looked thoughtful. “White noise,” he mused, eyes far away.

“Exactly. And I thought, I’ll call ‘Arry in the morning - only by the time I woke up properly it seemed a bit silly to bother you with. I knew you ‘ad this lot here to keep you busy, and you know what it’s like when you’ve just come off the road. Bit bloody weird for the first few days, and then there’s jet lag and all that silly ‘kin stuff scrambling yer brains.”

With a snort of agreement Steve got to his feet, poured himself more coffee and refreshed Nicko’s tea. “So what the ‘ell were you yelling about when you got here, then? Sounds like they’ve been getting a lot bloody clearer, these dreams.”

Nicko’s eyes were haunted, and he turned the cup between his palms for a moment before answering.

“You have no idea, Harry. No bloody idea at all....”

~*~

This time the screaming had been so bad that by the time Jennifer managed to wake him his throat was sore, and she was a hair away from panic. It took Nicko some minutes to gather his terror-scattered wits, and when he did so he realised that he was crouched in the corner of their bedroom with his hands tangled in his own hair, banging his head against the wall.

This was not good.

Jennifer sat back on her heels and let out a long whistle of relief. Once she was sure that he was fine, wasn’t having a heart attack or anything dire like that, she proceeded to get very angry indeed. 

“OK Nicko, what’s going on? This has happened every night this week - and I can’t take much more of it.” She leaned forward, took his chin in her hand and looked deep into his eyes. “And neither can you. Look at you, Nick - you’re not eating, every time you doze off you start to shake, and when you’re too tired to fight it any more-” she gestured at him, naked, still half-tangled in the sheet he’d dragged with him when he’d fallen out of bed in his attempt to escape whatever was in his head, “- this happens. You’ve got to talk to someone about this. Someone professional.”

That brought him up short. 

“A shrink? No way! Nothing wrong with me, I’m not bloody crazy - just a few bad dreams, that’s all it is. Honestly. Like Harry has--”

The word his wife spat through her teeth had Nicko’s eyebrows reaching for his hairline. He didn’t think she even knew words like that.

“I might have known--”

“Now hang on a minute, old girl. Just ‘cos I said they’re like Harry’s dreams doesn’t mean _exactly_ like his dreams, ‘cos if they was that would mean I’m someone... important... to... oh, _hell_.”

“Nicko?”

He slapped one hand over his eyes and cursed for a minute before wiping his palm over his face and heaving a long, weary sigh. “It’s unicorns, innit? I’m dreaming about unicorns. Something bad is happening to ‘em, and they’re in a lot of trouble and that’s why I’m dreaming them, right? Because your Nicko is their Nicko too, and oh my gawd, what if the little one’s in trouble? You remember, I told you about him and - ‘kin hell, let me up, I gotta do something!”

Jennifer steadied him as he staggered to his feet, face grey with sudden fear. This was, if anything, worse than some nebulous, unidentified night terror; the possibility that something awful was happening to the graceful, beautiful beings that had welcomed him into their lives tore at his heart. Was it Wren, or his mother Farasha? Were they trying to get a message to him, or was he just picking up some sort of strange signal generated by the suffering beasts?

“Nicko!”

“Bloody hell! I gotta get to England, see if Harry’s heard anything - gotta give him a ring, no, no time, just get on a plane - when’s the next flight to Heathrow? Hire a car, drive to his place, shouldn’t take long....”

Nicko’s voice trailed away as he dashed into the shower, his route erratic enough to send him caroming off the walls all the way. Jennifer sat on the edge of their bed, shaking her head in disbelief; that was her husband, all right. One word from anyone - or anything - in trouble, and he was off. Heart big enough for the whole world, that was his problem.

His face appeared around the doorframe, scrunched up in a mix of worry and exhaustion. “You wouldn’t chuck a few things in a bag for me, wouldja? I can sort a flight while the taxi takes me to the airport.” He vanished, and she heard the shower start up; three seconds and his face was back, the features now lengthened with worry. “Er, you don’t mind, do you? Only I think this is really important cos the unicorns wouldn’t ask for help from this world unless it was really, really--”

She interrupted him with a kiss. “I’ll pack a bag while you shower, and I’ll ring for a car.”

His grin was like the rising sun, and she couldn’t help but laugh at him.

“Cor, thanks love! You’re a good’un, you really are--”

“Shower!”

“Yes ma’am.”

And while he washed away the sweat from the nightmare she packed him a bag, rang for a taxi, and wondered what the hell was happening this time.

~*~

“So anyway,” Nicko continued, “I got on the plane and I thought, I wonder if the bracelet works on here as well? I should have thought of it sooner but you know how things are. Kind of confused after a bad night.”

Nicko lifted his hand and tilted it, the lustrous circlet around his wrist catching the light. It was made of unicorn hair, transformed into a shimmer of some unique metal that resembled silver by the breath of the unicorn that had given it to him; she had told him that if he slept with it in his hand and thought of her name before he dozed off, she - or another of her kind - would contact him.

“Turns out it worked, all right. All too bloody well.”

~*~

The cabin crew were beginning to feel rather unnerved. The big man in seat 4B looked to be having a nightmare, but they couldn’t wake him.

In fact that wasn’t, strictly speaking, the truth. Deep sleepers they were used to, as well as the ill and the very very drunk. That wasn’t a problem, but this? This was something different, creeping into the decidedly weird and spooky, and that they weren’t used to at all. The truth was that they couldn’t get near him.

One of them would head toward his seat, the centre one of three on the outside of the aircraft, fully intent on finding out how he was. Because to look at him, you knew he was anything but fine; the veins stood out on his forehead, his lips were clenched into a hard, white line, and he writhed and whimpered in his seat, sweat pouring from him in rivers.

But when they got within a seat or two they found themselves headed back the way they’d just come from, or past him and further down the aircraft. Nobody was sitting in any of the seats immediately around him, so they couldn’t tell if it was affecting anyone else but still--

He was in their charge, he was suffering - and there didn’t appear to be a damn thing they could do about it.

The cabin crew exchanged glances, and kept trying.

Nicko was in Hell. He’d slipped the bracelet from his wrist, clasped it in his hand and curled up under the blanket the nice cabin crew lady had brought him, all ready for a few hour’s sleep and - hopefully - some answers. But as soon as he’d dropped off, well, the trouble had started.

He was outside a corral, in a dusty, rocky place; it was high up and the air was thin, fresh and sharp with the tang of mountains. Wherever this place was it was lonely and secluded, hidden from the eyes of any who might watch.

Within the corral? Unicorns. A whole herd of them - Nicko could make out twenty and then lost count, sweat streaked silver hides dulled with dust, dark eyes rolling with fear and stress. Mares mostly, a few colts, adolescents and yearlings and some foals. The corral that held them had totems of some kind tied to each of the posts; Nicko approached, hoping to be able to do something, no matter how small, and stopped with a hiss of disgust when he realised what was hanging there. 

Each totem was comprised of bits of...something. He couldn’t tell what, but the sad scraps of flesh and clotted, dried blood tangled and twisted in the cold wind, each of the unicorns within the pen avoiding going anywhere near them. It was when he spotted that each scrap bore the remnants of hair and hide the same shade as the living creatures within that he began to get a nasty suspicion of just why it was such strong magic.

_Nicko Unicorn-friend!_

He looked up. An unfamiliar individual - once he would have said that they all looked like white horses to him, but not now - was focused on him from inside the horrible prison, her ears zeroed in and her eyes white-rimmed with fear. The rest of the herd milled and called behind her, and an icy wind began to whip the light grit around his boots up into little dust devils that nipped and scratched at his clothes. A darkness began to gather overhead, and Nicko could feel the dread rolling from the frightened creatures inside the corral. Something bad was coming.

_Why has the Prophet abandoned us?_

He ran to the rails, reached over. The mare rubbed her face against his hand and he could feel the softness of her nose, the damp of her smooth skin against his.

“He hasn’t - we didn’t know anything was wrong! What’s happening, love, why are you trapped here? Can I let you out? Where’s the little one?”

_Some stolen alive for ransom, some murdered - and as you are not really here you cannot physically release us. You must take our pleas to the Prophet, tell him what is happening to us._

“Love, I don’t understand. _What_ is happening to you? Who would dare to lock you all up in this horrible bloody cage?”

_The who - we suspect the shattered remnants of the High Fae, bent on revenge. But we cannot say, and there may be more than one force involved; the magic it takes to round us up and hold us is strong, and wild. As to the what..._ she snorted, shook her tangled mane. _Look behind you, Nicko._ That _is what is happening to us._

He turned, and the shock made him stagger against the post and rails of the corral. For there - tucked around a pile of concealing rock, which explained why he hadn’t seen it when he first walked up to speak to the mare - lay a slaughtering ground, a crude abattoir littered with scraps and blown shreds of drying meat, long streaks of wind-blackened blood sprayed up and along the heaped granite walls.

Bones gleamed in the clear mountain light, and silvered hides creaked in the breeze, stretched tight across frames and wedged upright, feather of manes and tails hanging to flicker with the wind in a hideous parody of life. Carrion birds picked at less identifiable scraps left to waste around the rocks, and a swirl of air brought the thick, sweet stench of death to his nose. He gagged, wide eyed at the destruction, and turned back to the mare with a cry.

“Oh my God - we’ve got to stop this! I have to let you out--”

He began to beat his hands against the wood of the railing, but try as he might he couldn’t grasp it. His hands passed through the catch of the gate, and he raged against the fact that he could feel the tears splashing on his useless fingers - but couldn’t get enough of a hold on the rawhide fastenings to free the increasingly frantic unicorns. They began to cry out, hooves beating a desperate tattoo of fear against the hard dust of the ground, and the mare he’d been speaking to lifted her gaze over his shoulder, her expression filled with a terrible sadness.

_You must escape, Nicko Unicorn-friend; they come, and there is nothing you can do to save us now._

The figures that surged around the corral were robed in black, a dull colour that reflected the light with a rusty gleam of dried blood. They stank, these ragged apparitions, and in their hands they bore long knives that spat back the thin light with a wicked chuckle of menace. When they got close to him they lifted their faces within the concealing hoods, sniffed the air; he couldn’t see the shape of their features, but he knew that they could sense him, dreaming shade or not.

A quick gleam of yellowed jagged teeth, and two of them came closer. Nicko shrank back against the post, but they halted while still several feet away; the one that had smiled bowed to him, a mockery of respect, and waved its arm at the scene. Stay awhile and watch, it seemed to say.

Then the horrors started. Two of the black robes would enter the corral, one armed with a long sharp pole and the other with a rope. They would rope a unicorn, and the one with the pole would keep its attention while two more would enter, and tie it even tighter; then the screaming, struggling creature was dragged from the pen, no shortage of violence used to quell the most desperate resistance.

The ropes were cinched tight around a pillar of rock, and the slaughter began.

~*~

Nicko took a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh of mixed grief and anger. “I couldn’t get away, Harry. It was like whatever they things in the robes were they held me there, made me watch until every last one of those unicorns was dead. Dead and taken apart,” and he kept his eyes, red rimmed and sore, fixed on the table. “All to bits and strung up to dry. And they’re not animals, Harry - you know they’re not, and they cried and they begged and they pleaded, but the ones in the robes wouldn’t stop. They just wouldn’t stop.”

He looked up at his friend, and Steve recoiled. Even he had rarely seen such a depth of agony scored on a soul; Nicko was a gentle man, and to see such horrible suffering had affected him more deeply than anyone could have ever imagined. 

“What I don’t understand,” he continued, and now there was anger coming up from the depths, a bubble of black and bitter rage, fuelled by helplessness, “is where’s Pan? Where are the Gods of that place? Why isn’t anyone doing anything about this?”

He shoved himself up from the chair and started to pace. “Fucking hell, Harry, where are _we_? Why didn’t we know about this, why aren’t we racing in there all afire to do something? She asked me why we’d abandoned them - and that’s something I’d like to know my own bloody self, I would honest. How can we _not_ have known?”

Steve rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. “I’ve felt a few flickers that something was going on over there--”

Nicko rounded on him.

“You _what_? And you never said anything?”

“Nick, we can’t go tearing over there every time they fall out! It’s their world and they need to run it their way - it’s different to here, different rules, different ways.”

“So you’re gonna let this happen, is that what you’re saying?”

Nicko’s fists were clenched at his sides, and his eyes were wild. Steve held his hands up, palms flat. “No! If I’d known it was that serious I’d have tried to find out more about it, mate. My point is that we’ve got our jobs over here in our world and we don’t have the time to be policing bloody Faery as well. Or the right. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Our jobs,” said Nicko, flatly.

“Yeah,” Steve replied, missing the warning in his friend’s voice completely. He stared off into the distance, eyes unfocused as he mulled things over aloud. “I’ll give Davey a call, see if he’s picked anything up - and Bruce, just in case that goblin of his has given him a heads up. This year should be pretty quiet - few festivals, so we should have time to--”

Nicko roared, and grabbed him. He lifted him by the shirt front, shoved him back, pinned him to the wall; expression wild, he was as furious as Steve had ever seen him.

“ _Festivals_? They’re killing the bloody unicorns because of something we helped to do and you’re worried about _festivals_? Harry, we have got to get over there and do something and _fuck_ the bloody festivals!”

Steve shook him off, shoved him back. He scowled, planted both hands in Nicko’s chest and pushed; Nicko might be the bigger man, but he was just as strong. He chased him back to the centre of the kitchen and stepped back, giving them both space to move. He didn’t think it was going to descend into scuffling, but if it did he wanted as much room around him as possible. It had been a long time since he’d fallen out with any of his band mates badly enough to fight, but with Nicko as distracted and frantic as he was then this could be very unpleasant indeed--

“Enough, Nick,” he growled, “you need to calm down, get some perspective.”

“Perspective?” the other man’s voice broke on the word, and he shook his head. “You don’t know what it’s like, Harry--”

Steve gave a wry smile, and took Nicko’s elbow with a gentle shake. “Actually, I do. I’m probably the only one who does, 's a matter of fact.”

The snort was weak, but much more like the Nicko he was used to. He steered him through to the living room and let the kids persuade him to stay for a while; the younger ones in particular adored him, and he they. Once they decided he had to stay with them for a while Steve knew he wouldn’t have to worry; he’d be well distracted from any thoughts of more esoteric pursuits, or terrible happenings with the Fae. Plus it might even wear him out to the point that he’d actually sleep without dreaming - although from experience, Steve knew that to be pretty unlikely.

Whatever the case, it gave him time to call the others and try to find out just what the hell was going on. Because if the unicorns were being wiped out then there was some pretty heavy magic being thrown around; if Pan and the others weren’t able to make it through to either warn or ask for help, well, that boded even worse. Even Gods could die.

_And so can we_ , he thought as he dialled Bruce’s cellphone number, and the dark thought sent a chill up his spine.

__

_~~tbc~~_


	3. Out Of The Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They'd seen Faerie flower again such a short time before—and now the sickness of their own world was spilling over, destroying the beauty and wonder that had so beguiled them all.

_****_

_Out Of The Shadows_

Bruce stretched, and let out a long sigh through his nose. Almost there; another hour or so and they’d be landing in Dubai, routine run, nothing special. Two day stopover then home again. Little break in the sunshine away from England’s piss poor weather at this time of year. Do a bit of lounging by the pool, maybe a wander through the gold souk to see if he could pick up anything nice for the wife then back home, week off then a couple of short runs. Good way to start the year, all things considered.

He flicked the goblin’s foot. It was, as usual on long haul flights, fast asleep on the dashboard of the aircraft; it had been looking out of the window and dozed off in a untidy heap. Although it managed to never, actually, fall off; it behaved as though its body were full of sand, and stayed in said untidy lump until Bruce woke it with a sharp poke.

“Wake up. Time to make yourself scarce, mate.”

Despite the fact that no one else on the plane had ever seen the little goblin, his habit of apparently talking to himself was noticed. However, it had become something of an in-joke with the flight crews he worked with; Bruce claimed having an invisible goblin friend staved off boredom on long flights, and the crews just rolled their eyes and told him that a pilot really shouldn’t have such an active imagination.

His co-pilot eyed him with some affection. “Talking to your little friend again, Bruce?”

“Yeah,” he replied, nudging the goblin again to hurry it up. “I’d hate for somebody to notice him in Dubai - god only knows what the Islamic authorities would do if they caught me consorting with non-humans. Probably burn me at the bloody stake.”

For all that nobody had ever seen the little grey-skinned beast - named, for no good reason, Bob - there was a first time for everything, and no matter how Westernised most of Dubai was it was still under Islamic law. And Bruce knew that no matter who he was, if he trod on the wrong toes over there - or was caught with a goblin - he’d be straight into some hellpit of a jail, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred pounds. Probably under a sentence of death, castration, limb removal or something equally cheerful.

But Bob refused to stay at home, so the rule was that he stayed in the bag unless Bruce was in his hotel room, and he remained hidden unless his master was totally alone. No side trips, no exceptions - he stayed firmly concealed until they were well on the way home, and out of any airspace that might mean a sudden landing in any Middle Eastern country. Discretion was, after all, the better part of valour.

“You’re a nutter.”

Bruce grinned, and watched Bob raise his middle finger to the co-pilot before making his rather sullen way to Bruce’s flight bag.

“Nah,” said Bruce with a wink. “I’m just complicated.”

~*~

Steve managed to get hold of Bruce’s long-suffering wife, after leaving several increasingly frantic messages on the voice mail of his mobile. The news that he was going to be in the Middle East for a few days did not make him happy, but all he could do was leave another message for him to get in touch as soon as possible, and go back to trying to get hold of the others.

Davey and his family were on their way home from a holiday in Hawaii, but he would get over to see Steve as soon as he got back to the UK. Janick and H were at home, and were now on their way over; Steve debated calling Rod, but decided not to. He knew most of what had gone on three summers before, and indeed about Steve’s involvement with the Fae - but on the whole had managed to stay clear of it, preferring to concern himself with more mundane matters. And that was how they all wanted it to stay; it was an arrangement that worked, and meant that at least one of them always had his feet on the ground.

Steve watched Nicko pacing the rain-dulled garden, hands in his pockets and head down, and reflected that there went a man who could sorely use some perspective about now.

He set the coffee pot on to brew, and settled down to wait.

~*~

Once clear of the airport and on the way to the hotel Bruce checked his voice mail, surprised to see several messages from Steve. Not like him to call so often unless something was wrong - and everything had been just fine the last time he’d spoken to him, a couple of days ago.

_Bruce, we’ve got a problem. Nicko’s just turned up - he’s in a hell of a state - and he says something bad’s happening to the unicorns. Haven’t heard anything my end, but I’m going to try and contact Pan or some of the others. You heard anything? Give me a call._

The unicorns? Bruce tapped his phone against his chin and shuffled through his memories. No, he hadn’t heard anything either, and surely if it was serious someone would have got word to him via Bob? But the goblin had been behaving normally, no hint of trouble anywhere.

He skipped through the messages, only pausing to listen to the last one.

_Bruce, dammit! Call me. Nicko’s goin’ mental here, says we’ve got to go dashing off to bloody Faery right now. Ask that bloody goblin of yours, will you? And call me!_

Well, he couldn’t do anything right now. He’d just have to wait until he got to the hotel and could have a word with Bob in private - and call Steve back, see if he could talk Nicko down out of the trees. Wasn’t like him to go off on one like this - and he, of all people, should know how dangerous it was to go running off to Faery half-cocked. Without the right knowledge and preparation it could be lethal; and if something strong enough to hurt the unicorns was loose, then dangerous wasn’t the right word. It would be like walking straight into a grinder - they’d be dogmeat before they could ask what the fuck was going on.

Bruce fretted, and waited for the bus to get the hotel.

~*~

Parties bored him, on the whole. But some local businessman was throwing a huge beano at the hotel, and the flight crew had been invited to attend. It would have been bad form to refuse - always worth keeping on the good side of the locals, especially here where one word in the wrong ear could screw you up so royally - so here he was, smart-but-casual, sipping champagne and making small talk with lots of people he wouldn’t usually bother to give the time of day to. At least they only looked at him as a pilot - he doubted that any of them had even heard of Maiden, let alone recognised him as the lead singer.

After all, dire as the party was the alternative was to pace his room and wait for Bob to return with news; he’d turfed the goblin out of his bag the moment he’d heard the footsteps of the bellhop recede down the corridor.

“Right,” he’d said, eyeing the nervous-looking goblin that sat in the heap of his belongings on the floor, obviously worried it had done something wrong, “unicorns. What’s going on?”

Bob’s gleaming amber eyes had widened, the pupils reduced to slits in the brightness of the room.

“Have you heard anything? Because Nicko - yes, you know Nicko, the big one that likes to yell ‘boo’ at you a lot - has been having bad dreams and he wants to go see if the damn unicorns are all OK. So. I need information, right?”

Bob leapt to his feet, and threw a smart salute - albeit rather a strange one, given the fact that goblin arms are not designed for smartness in anything.

“But before you leap off--” Bruce grabbed the goblin’s elbow and gave it a shake, “you come back here, right? I don’t care how important it is, you don’t come and find me anywhere but here in this room, OK? It’s important. Remember it.”

The goblin had vanished - off to God knows where to do his fact finding - and then the phone had rung, inviting Bruce and the crew to the party. Well, it wasn’t ideal, but as a distraction it would work.

He found himself cornered by a woman, all giggles and too much makeup. He knew the type, had met them before; expatriate English, happy to live within their compounds and think themselves free because the life in the gilded cage was easy and rich. Well, whatever made them happy - but he did resent the way that most of them boasted about it, and lauded it as the only way to live.

Still, he had to remain polite, and he tuned back into whatever she was twittering about.

“I don’t know if you ride - do you like horses? - but a few of us are going out to see some horses tomorrow. Our host breeds them, don’t you know? Finest Arabian horses in the country, so he says, although they all say that, don’t they?”

Her breath, heavy with the scent of stale cigarettes and whisky, washed across his face. Bruce leaned back a little, and wondered how long he could hold his breath for.

The next words, however, took what little breath he had left away.

“They say,” she murmured, more than a little drunk, “that he’s bought a unicorn - wants to make his fabled stock even more exotic! A unicorn. How foolish. But you know these Arabs, always thinking they know better than anyone else....”

Bruce feigned patience with her rambling racial slurs, his mind going a mile a minute. This was too much of a coincidence; the unicorns in trouble over in Fae, and now one showed up here? Because if one was going to escape whatever was going on over there then this was as logical a place as any for it to emerge, the amount of money burning a hole in some pockets enough to buy absolutely anything.

“I was thinking of going riding while we were here, as a matter of fact,” lied Bruce smoothly, “and it would be so much nicer to get an invite to go with some other Brits, rather than have to hire some mounts. Do you think you could swing it?”

He looked into her eyes, gave her his most appealing smile; once he turned on the charm she was lost, never stood a chance.

Sure enough she blushed, fluttered and dropped her gaze, peeking up at him shyly through her lashes. “But of course! I see our host over there now - why don’t you come with me, and I’ll introduce you?”

He let her take his hand - almost cringing at the sweaty, clammy feel of her skin against his own - and tow him across the room, snatches of conversation no more than a buzz in his ears as his mind scrambled to come up with some sort of a plan. Even if it was one of the captured unicorns, how the hell could he get it back? It wasn’t like the goblin that he could just stuff in his bag and trust to its magic to hide it--

“Ah, Mister Dickinson?” rolled a dark, mellifluous voice, smashing his train of thought into a million scattered fragments, “I have heard of you. You make music and you fly and you fight with a sword. Very good. A bard of old, wouldn’t you say, Julie?” and the man before him turned his attention back to the twitching, shivering woman at his side, and Bruce could breathe again.

He’d met some powerful men in his time, but there was something so utterly dangerous about this one that his balls wanted to crawl up into his body when he looked at him. It was one of those gazes that you couldn’t hold; it looked right into your head, and could read the dirtiest most shameful little secret hidden there, as plain as the nose on your face.

He throttled a desire to bow deeply and scarper, and forced himself to smile.

“But where are my manners,” came that voice again, and it was all he could do to smile and take the offered hand rather than cringe under that piercing gaze. “I am Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Thani. I own this hotel, and... some other property. My passion is breeding horses, our heritage, wouldn’t you say? From out of the desert....”

The man’s eyes now stared into a vision that only he could see, for which Bruce was ridiculously grateful. God alone knew what it was about this guy that rattled him so badly, but there was... something. Perhaps he’d been hanging out with Pan for too long, but in his gut he knew that he’d just hit paydirt.

Although he wasn’t sure how long he was going to live to enjoy it.

~*~

By the time Bruce returned to his room he felt as though he were about to have hysterics. He’d managed to keep up small talk with the abominable Sheikh for over an hour, sweat making its rancid way down the centre of his back until he felt he might scream. However, plans had been made for the following day; he was to meet up with a party of visitors and expatriates in the lobby at seven - so that the tour of the facility could be completed before the heat of the day became overwhelming - then lunch before those that were not going to be riding were returned to the hotel.

He’d managed to shower and was pacing the room, waiting for the goblin’s return when he realised that he hadn’t called Steve back to update him on the news; he’d managed a very quick call earlier, but now he had real news. Although he’d have more when Bob got back--

Sod it, he couldn’t wait any longer. 

Bruce grabbed his mobile and hit the speed dial that would connect him to Harry’s place; as it rang he swore and turned to check the alarm clock at his bedside. It was midnight here, so that meant that he was going to be in trouble when - if - the phone got answered.

“Bruce,” grumbled a familiar voice, a hair before he was about to give up and try again. “Do you know what bloody time it is?”

“Four in the morning, yes, I know. Sorry Harry.”

More muttering, then the shuffling and rustling that meant Harry was headed for the kitchen. “Got any news?” he asked, his voice hushed - presumably - to avoid waking the kids.

Bruce sank into the chair by the desk and wrung his hand across his eyes.

“Some. And none of it good....”

He relayed what little he’d been able to learn so far, including the awful balls-clenching fear that the black gaze of the Sheikh had given him. “Fuck knows why, though,” he grumbled, his eyes darting around the room, searching the rich furnishings for any sign of his goblin, “he was nothing but polite. But there’s something about him--”

A crash from the bathroom sent him to his feet, a hissed word to Harry urging him to silence as well. Bruce crept forward, dreading what he might see - until Bob stumbled around the doorframe, shot his beloved master a rather sheepish grin and plonked his grey bottom down on the rug, a long sigh of exhaustion whistling from between his floppy lips.

“It’s Bob. And he looks knackered.”

Steve sighed. “Thank fuck for that. Well? Does he know anything?”

“Give him a chance. I don’t speak goblin, remember?”

“Well it’s about fucking time you did,” grumbled Steve, and the two men bickered back and forth for a moment while Bob tried to tell Bruce what he’d found out in a combination of his own language and wild gestures. Eventually he flung his skinny arms in the air and stamped off back to the bathroom, returning a moment later with a small hand towel.

“What the fuck--”

The goblin draped the towel over his head, drew himself up to his full height and pinched his lips into a thin, hard line; he narrowed his amber eyes, and pulled his brows together just enough to shade them to a darker colour with a piercing glint.

“Oh shit.”

“Wot?”

“I think he’s run into the Sheikh.”

Bob pointed at Bruce while touching his nose, a gesture Bruce had taught him from the game of charades, the gesture meaning ‘You’ve got it!’

“He’s just said he - what’s that?” 

Another familiar voice, then the clicks and thumps as the phone was handed over accompanied by a certain amount of muffled swearing.

“Bruce, it’s Davey. Hello.”

“Hey. What--”

“Give the phone to Bob.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not, honest! Come on, I’ve been learning goblin, I might be able to get something out of him, you know.”

“For fuck’s sake Davey, _why_ have you been - never mind. Bob!” and he turned, beckoned the beast forward. He came, towel still draped over his head, and took the phone; Bruce mimed putting it to his ear and the goblin complied with a resigned shrug that spoke volumes. His expression changed to one of comical surprise, however, when he found himself being addressed in his own tongue.

And then he was off, bony legs taking him from one side of the costly rugs to the other, white towel a-flap around his shoulders and free hand waving like a flag as he chattered. Bruce sat back on the bed and grinned; despite the seriousness of the situation he found himself vastly amused by the sight.

“Talk about Bob of Arabia,” he said to himself, and was surprised by Bob’s saucy wink from under the concealing terry cloth.

He kept having to stop, and once repeated a sentence so firmly - as one saying ‘listen, stupid,’ - that Bruce had to clap a hand over his mouth to prevent the explosion of laughter that threatened to escape. Eventually the goblin rolled his eyes, handed the phone back to Bruce, bowed - and vanished.

“Davey?”

His friend sounded a little strained. “Excitable little chap, isn’t he?”

“Never mind that, what did he _say_?”

As Davey explained Bruce was glad he was sitting down - because had been standing, he would have dropped on the spot.

~*~

Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Thani was, as Bruce had suspected, Very Bad People Indeed. It turned out that the ever-resourceful goblin had first scouted the hotel, avoiding several traps set just to catch creatures like himself. The Sheikh obviously knew a great deal about worlds beyond the natural, and Bruce just had to hope that the traps hadn’t been set because he was here. Discarding that thought as unnecessarily paranoid, he went back to listening to Dave’s explanation.

Jumping between the worlds of Faerie and Earth wasn’t hard for Bob, so once he’d figured that there was something up he’d nipped across to see what he could see.

And almost walked right into a trap.

“Bruce, they’re watching for us. Well, not just us, but anyone crossing over. Bob said he only just got away, and you know what sneaky little bastards those goblins can be.”

“You won’t see them unless they want you to,” agreed Bruce, morosely.

“There’s great battle machines, some sort of - hybrid, I guess, although there isn’t a word for it - between human technology and magic. Bruce, there’s humans over there. And they’ve got guns.”

He lowered his head, took a deep breath. Dave’s next words couldn’t be good, and they weren’t.

“Faerie is under siege, Bruce. And they’re from our world.”

~*~

There was a very long pause before either man spoke again. It was Bruce who broke the silence first, clearing a lump in his throat that felt like a block of ice. They’d seen Faerie flower again such a short time before - and now the sickness of their own world was spilling over, destroying the beauty and wonder that had so beguiled them all.

No wonder they hadn’t heard from Pan.

“So where’s Bob gone, then?”

Davey hesitated.

“You’re not going to like this.”

“Just... tell me. I really don’t think tonight can get any fucking worse.”

A sigh wound its way across the airwaves, bounced from a satellite and found its way to Bruce’s ear still full of the dolor that Davey had given it. 

“He’s gone to find a demon.”

__

_~tbc~_


	4. Don't Look To The Eyes Of A Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh God. I'm dead. He's going to get caught and I'll vanish into thin air. You do know what they do to..." and he had difficulty finding a suitable word, sputtering as he was in fury at the risk Bob had taken without so much as a by-your-leave, "sorcerors in countries like this? Fucking hell Davey, I'll be lucky if they just burn me at the stake!"

_****_

_~Chapter Three~_

_Don’t Look To The Eyes Of A Stranger_

“You _what?_ ”

“Now, don’t yell at me, Bruce--”

“Oh God. I’m dead. He’s going to get caught and I’ll vanish into thin air. You do know what they do to...” and he had difficulty finding a suitable word, sputtering as he was in fury at the risk Bob had taken without so much as a by-your-leave, “sorcerors in countries like this? Fucking hell Davey, I’ll be lucky if they just burn me at the stake!”

“Calm down--”

He flung himself on the bed, teeth clenched so tight he could hear them squeak. “I will not calm down!”

“Bruce--”

“It’s not your arse they’re going to be sticking red hot pokers up, is it?”

Davey sighed. “He’s gone out into to the desert to see if he can find any - I think the words translate to ‘sand demon’, but I could be wrong.”

“Wrong? Davey!” and the last word came out as a wail of frustration, which his friend moved quickly to placate.

“Look, it’s related to a troll and it lives in our world. I tried to get him to wait but he said there was no time. Called me some quite rude names when I tried to explain too.”

Bruce was stunned. “What, _Bob_ did?”

“Yeah,” and damn it, but there was that good-humoured chuckle, so clear that Bruce could almost see Davey’s round face aglow with amusement, “and when I said we should work something out together he told me I couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery, and to leave it to him.”

“Bob said that.”

“Yeah! Well. Yes and no, to be honest,” and there was that chuckle again, and this time Bruce could see the blonde shaking his head with a grin. “What he actually said, I think, was that I couldn’t get laid in a pit of starving elven prostitutes. Or that was the gist of it, anyway.”

“Oh God,” moaned Bruce again, and let himself slither off the bed to lie flat on his back on the rug, staring up at the ornate plaster ceiling rose before letting his eyelids roll down to shutter his vision. Pictures of ancient torture devices were printed on the back of those lids, though, so he cracked them open enough to blur his surroundings into a cream and gold mist. “I am so dead.”

“There’s more.”

“Oh no.”

“He has to go with you tomorrow.”

“Fuck.”

“Look on the bright side,” said Davey, “at least we know more than we did--”

The phone didn’t break when it bounced off the opposite wall, but it certainly killed the connection.

~*~

The little goblin had appeared to be suitably chastened when he returned the next morning. Bruce had ignored him, going through his usual wakeup routine without even acknowledging his little grey skinned shadow, although he did sneak enough sideways glances to be sure that he was unhurt. Ready to go he picked up his laptop case, and eyed the goblin.

He didn’t want to know about demons, sand or otherwise, until they were back in England, and Bob didn’t mention them. Bruce wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.

“Can you fit in here?”

Bob flung himself at the bag with alacrity, and wedged himself in there with no more than a squeak or two when velcro or a spare strap pinched him somewhere private.

“You are going to be careful, aren’t you?” he asked, staring down into the glow of the slot-pupilled amber eyes. Bob’s nod of reply was slow, and his expression said it all; he was afraid, but he knew what was at stake, and he would be careful.

“Let’s go then,” said Bruce with a nod, zipped up the bag, and strode out of the room like a man without a care in the world.

~*~

The Sheikh himself was absent from the gathering in the marble-floored lobby, a cluster of men and women that spoke in loudly offensive British accents waiting by the side of an enormous ornamental fountain. One of Bruce’s crew was going to accompany them; Lisa was an avid horsewoman, and when she’d heard about the trip had begged to be included. Bruce felt bad about agreeing - it was one thing putting himself in the line of fire, but quite another for one of his crew to do so - before having to reluctantly admit to himself that it certainly helped his cover.

She didn’t look quite as keen this morning, though, and cast some quite nervous glances over her shoulder at the rest of the group.

“Morning Lisa,” he said, with a smile and a kiss on the cheek by way of greeting.

Her smile was no more than a quick flash, her voice lowered beneath the inane chatter when she answered him.

“Morning Bruce. They’re not very... nice, are they, these people?”

He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “Well, no,” he murmured, “but they’re very very rich. That means they can do as they damn well please and get away with it. Here, at least. Horrible, isn’t it?”

His wry wink drew a more genuine smile from her, and she relaxed a little.

Several liveried servants began to bustle around them all, herding them like very well mannered sheepdogs driving a flock of particularly bolshy sheep. Bruce allowed himself and Lisa to be driven with the rest, taking a seat in one of the fleet of Range Rovers that waited for them outside the hotel. The drivers all wore radios, earpieces visible under their berets; they were dressed like paramilitaries, and Bruce heard his teeth grind once more when one of the women in their vehicle observed that it was like going to war, but more fun.

The glance he shared with Lisa said it all, so he clenched his jaw and said nothing. If she’d noticed the bulges under the uniforms that indicated that their drivers and servants were armed to the back teeth she didn’t let on; he didn’t mention it either, as the very thought made him want to get in his nice safe plane and zoom back to the UK, where all this would seem like a particularly bad fever dream.

The stables, once they caught sight of them, were breathtaking.

More palatial than anything he’d ever seen, they sprawled across the desert in a mirage of white stucco and sandstone, an oasis of green lawns and paddocks amidst the wild bleakness of the great desert itself. The amount of water that must have to be piped here to keep it lush didn’t bear thinking about, not when there were people dying of thirst on the very same continent.

Bruce shut his conscience in a cage in his mind, and begged it to be quiet at least until they were on the plane.

They disembarked around another fountain, ushered into the cool shade of a large open-sided barn, offered refreshments and generally pampered and cared for until even Bruce began to relax. The magnificence of the surroundings seemed strange - to him - to be what was, after all, nothing more than a glorified farm; that was, until he saw the horses.

Echoing Lisa’s soft call of delight he approached the ring that lay outside the barn, so immersed in what he was seeing that he almost missed the twitch from his bag that indicated Bob’s surreptitious departure.

Almost.

Swallowing past the lump of fear in his throat he kept going, only stopping when he felt the press of a scarlet silken rope that divided the end of the barn from the grassy paddock outside; a series of men in traditional dress led out the horses, mares and colts, geldings and fillies. Their coats reflected the harsh desert sun, and intelligent dark eyes watched the visitors with wary regard; their delicate legs and sturdy, well shaped hooves described graceful arcs in the hot, dry air, and their manes rolled in the breeze of their passing like silken flags.

The Sheikh himself had appeared, and gave a running commentary on the horses that they were seeing; every time Bruce looked across at him, however, he was being looked at right back. And not just by the Sheikh; there was a tall, thin man next to him, face weathered by the sun, a bedouin from the sands all but for his dress. A sober linen suit, dark in colour, but neat as a new pin; he leaned across to murmur in his master’s ear every time he paused in his commentary.

White teeth flashed as the Sheikh smiled at Bruce, and with a chill in the pit of his stomach he turned away.

The mares were addressed as favoured daughters, the satin of their hides plump with health; the Sheikh told stories of the glorious equine breed before them, told them of the five favoured lines. How twenty thirsty mares had been turned loose by a well, and when the prophet Mohammed called them back only five did so, their love of the prophet greater than their thirst for the water. He could name the bloodline of each of his magnificent horses, and told how they were all direct descendants of the five favoured lines. He spoke of their endurance, that they could run across the sands all day carrying their warrior, and still be willing to run through the night; their battle skills, their intelligence almost human at times. How the Bedouin had shared their lives and their tents with them for generations, survival without them unthinkable.

He also told of their role in the modern world, how they were without peer for racing and endurance, their blood mixed with that of almost every other breed to lend some of the desert stamina, the wily and clever nature, the health. The English thoroughbred, European breeds of sport horse - every discipline of equestrian endeavour owed something to the breed displayed so marvelously before them.

“And now,” he said, with an unpleasant smile that appeared to darken his complexion further, “what I know many of you have been waiting for. My sons, the progenitors of the line - the stallions.”

If the mares had been wonderful, a vision of grace and light over the billiard-green of the paddock turf, these were more so - but by orders of magnitude. The eyes of the mares had watched and measured the strange visitors, but the eyes of the stallions challenged; with the thunder of their hooves against the ground they drummed out their claim to the land, tossed their heads and flared their nostrils to taste the hot, dry air. 

Broad shoulders working like pistons, powerfully muscled necks arched they flicked their tails, grey, chestnut, bay, black; the sun shone from each hair until it glistened. They were the spirits of the desert, wild and free, constrained as much by grace and their innate manners as by the bridles that held them.

Bruce thought he saw a spark of wistfulness, however, when a magnificent blood bay lifted his head to snort at the desert that rolled blue-grey with distance, beyond the ordered walls of his glorious prison. Did he miss the sand under his hooves, the thunder of the wind out there so far away from the white doves that cooed and pecked amidst the red tiles of the neat stable roofs?

He couldn’t say. But the very spectacle of the horses had taken his breath away, so when the last of the equine spirits was led to his shady rest he was keen to slake his thirst from one of the pitchers of iced water that had been quietly brought to the tables behind them while they watched.

Lunch was served, and the Sheikh began to mingle as the guests served themselves from the sumptuous buffet. Uniformed servants made their way through the throng like silent ghosts, ensuring that every glass was filled, every plate holding something to the liking of the guests. The man in the dark suit remained at the shoulder of his master, and Bruce caught several glimpses of shadowy figures around the edges of the buildings. These shadows didn’t conceal their guns; their silent menace might be unnoticed by the rest of the group, but Bruce felt their eyes on the back of his neck all the time.

He just wanted to see if there really was a unicorn here, and then he wanted to get the hell out as fast as he could.

“Would you be interested,” said that familiar, cool voice behind his shoulder, “in attending a little...private show, once your companions depart for their excursion?”

He almost dropped his plate. Not only was he built like the side of a house and carried an air of menace with him that would have scared the crap out of Hitler, but the bastard also moved like a cat.

Bruce swallowed the suddenly dry mouthful of food - with an effort - then pasted on a friendly expression when he turned to face the Sheikh. 

“Of course! It will be a shame to miss the ride, but I’m sure what you have to show will be fascinating.”

The expression tightened for a moment, then the man inclined his head with a smile. “Indeed. You will be brought to where you need to be after the meal. And Mister Dickinson,” he added, no trace of the smile now evident on his face although it had never, in actual fact, so much as touched his eyes, “do not wander. It would be... unwise.”

Bruce managed a smile, and found himself under the dark suited man’s cool regard for a moment after the Sheikh had moved on to speak to other members of the party. Then he, too, bowed and turned away, and Bruce wondered just what the hell the bastard knew about him. 

And if he would ever see home again.

~*~

Lisa dashed up to him a short time after, wearing a huge grin. “We’re off for a ride now - sure you won’t come?”

He gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek. “I’ll keep my feet on the ground, thanks. You be careful, OK?”

She laughed and trotted off after the main body of the group that were being ushered politely away. Less than half of the people remained; of those, Bruce saw some being distracted by a falconry display on the paddock that had so recently been used to show off the Sheikh’s breeding stock, and others being quietly led away by servants. A touch on his shoulder took his attention, and he turned to see the man that had been at the Sheikh’s shoulder standing behind him.

“If you would care to accompany me, Mr. Dickinson?” he asked, his voice low, smooth. Bruce had heard the same tonal quality in two types of men he’d met in his life; those that spent their lives around animals, and members of certain very skilled special forces groups.

For his own sake, he hoped that this individual had it for the first reason.

“Of course. It’s very good of the Sheikh to invite me, Mister... er...?”

“My name is Zachariah,” said his companion, a small crease of amusement forming beside his sharp eyes, “I am His Highness’s personal aide here. And I am afraid,” he added, as they came through the elegant complex of buildings to one set a little aside, “that you will have to leave your bag here. Once I have searched it.”

Bruce felt his heart stop. “It’s just my laptop.”

“You are afraid of thieves?” asked Zachariah, and narrowed his eyes. “ _Here?_ ”

He didn’t sound very happy, and Bruce forced a laugh which he hoped came across as more genuine than it felt.

“Of course not! Just habit, you understand. Things aren’t nearly as safe back home as they are here, ha ha.” _Bruce. Shut. Up._ “Just here, you say?”

“After I have checked it.”

He had no choice, and handed the bag across. His mind had gone blank; he had no idea how he was going to explain the lack of a computer in there almost as intractable a problem as how to explain a goblin. Well, nearly. At least he could use a jet lag fried brain as an excuse for the first.

Zachariah unzipped the bag, tilted it this way and that, but shrugged. “All seems to be in order,” he murmured, and sounded almost disappointed. Bruce tipped his head, eyed the contents of the bag; whatever either man had guessed would be in there, neither had actually expected it to be a laptop computer, as described, solid and real.

Bruce looked up at his guard, and his smile was bright. Zachariah sighed through his nose, and handed the bag to another black-uniformed individual. This one was most conspicuously armed with a very ugly machine pistol, the muzzle of which constantly tracked whichever foreigner was nearest. The men exchanged a soft conversation in a language Bruce didn’t speak, and then with a bow Zachariah ushered him through a heavily guarded door, and into the building.

~*~

It was dim and cool inside, and it took Bruce a few minutes to figure out what he was seeing.

There was a sand floored ring, which had an inner construction of bars and wires that had a structure that reminded Bruce of a portcullis to one side of it; this led to a chute of steel bars, again topped with wire, double barred all the way back to a smaller enclosure that resembled a very large shipping container with windows - barred and wired - around the top of it. Several chutes came away from this odd structure, each one having several gates along its length and ending in some kind of enclosure like the one they were being led to, but different sizes and shapes.

There were five people in the group, each attended by a guard with a gun; the Sheikh was taking no chances, although it did give him an uneasy feeling when he realised that he was the only one accompanied by one of the ruler’s personal staff. He wondered if it was important, or just a happy accident.

Knowing his luck--

The man himself entered the ring, the bars and wires behind him. His djellabah gleamed white in the dimness of the building, and his eyes missed nothing in the gloom; he studied each face, gave a little nod which Bruce felt Zachariah return from behind his shoulder, and he began to speak.

“My friends, what I am about to show you here is a true wonder. You will think it impossible, but rest assured that it is not. Please, let yourself believe; the creature that will shortly enter this ring will bring the one missing quality to my beloved horses.” He narrowed his eyes, and the next word was almost hissed between clenched teeth. “ _Magic_.”

Some muttering and shifting of the other four, and then came a clatter of raising bars, a squeal of anger, and the thunder of hooves in a fast, agitated pattern.

A blur of movement and an impression of speed, then the portcullis gate dropped behind the equine that now flung himself around the confines of the inner ring, turning to seek an escape from the structure that confined him.

The muttering became louder, questions and denial openly spoken, but Bruce just heaved a great sigh and felt his heart go cold in his chest with sorrow.

It was a unicorn.

~*~

They were allowed into the ring to examine the Sheikh’s catch - although Bruce thought the word ‘prisoner’ would be more accurate - but were warned not to approach too closely, as the wires carried a voltage high enough to kill them, and the single spike that extended from the animal’s forehead could be used to deadly effect through the bars.

“He has killed ten men since I acquired him,” said the Sheikh, and his pride in his capture was obvious from his tone, “and wounded more. Be very careful, my friends - he is angry, and he will harm you if he can.”

Bruce hung back, unwilling to go closer than he absolutely had to. The humiliation of the poor beast tore at his soul, and he wanted nothing more than to grab a gun from one of the guards, fling open the prison door and let the unicorn go; but he knew that to do so would mean his own death before he’d taken more than a dozen paces. And with his colleague still in the power of this madman’s servants he had more than himself to think of.

The unicorn arched its neck and released a long cry, something like a whinny but so filled with despair and longing that it brought tears to Bruce’s eyes; it was a sound that only the hardest of heart could ignore, but those surrounding him did just that, and circled the cage with expressions of avaricious wonder.

The horses that they had been shown outside were undoubtedly finer of form than the creature in the cage. Every bone, muscle and tendon had been bred to appear the way it did, each feature as intimately tied with the people that controlled their destiny as this animal was outside of it. Their beauty was refined, precise; this creature was made of wild passion itself.

They were gems cut and milled to suit the hand and eye of man; this was a diamond in the rough, the form to please none but its creator.

But his head was still delicate and strong, his eyes wide and snapping furious black fire at his watchers; his scarlet-rimmed nostrils tasted their scent on the dry air, and he tossed his twisted horn in contempt for them and their grasping, avaricious ways. His mane fell about his shoulders in a curtain of creamy silk, and his coat glowed with a silver lustre that no amount of fine breeding could ever reproduce. The tail that flagged such defiance was missing some chunks of hair, but it still flowed and curled around his hindquarters as though it had a life of its own. His cloven hooves drummed his anger on the surface of the ring, and when he cantered around its confines - always alert and eyeing the walls for the possibility of escape - the grace of his movement was enough to take away the breath.

He was beauty personified, his muscular form defining his maleness and his power in such a way that not one watcher, no matter how cynical, doubted for a single moment that he was not exactly what he appeared to be.

The unicorn swung himself around, sand flying from his hooves, and turned to challenge them. He reared, striking out with his forefeet and menacing them with his horn; he roared a challenge, and had there not been a very secure barrier between them Bruce would have been scared to death.

As it was, he felt terribly sad - although anger began to make itself felt when he heard several derisive snickers around him. Apparently, some of the other watchers found the display amusing, although how much of the reaction was to cover real fear he had no way to tell. The unicorn screamed once more, then dropped to all fours and began to pace the front of the ring.

Then he saw Bruce, and stopped dead.

Drawn by those deep pools of emotion, he stepped closer to the ring; he was stretching out his hand to touch the silver nose extended his way when a light touch on his arm stopped him. 

“If you touch the bars, you will die,” said the soft voice of Zachariah.

Bruce shook himself, glanced around; except for himself, Zachariah and the Sheikh the large room was empty. The others must have been shuffled out while he was staring at the unicorn, lost in the wonder of its recognition; he got a grip, looked back at the animal, and could have sworn he saw it wink.

“He recognises one that has travelled beyond this world,” rumbled the Sheikh, approaching Bruce and moving so close to him that he loomed over the smaller man.

He didn’t know what to say, so just swallowed - hard - and glanced back over his shoulder.

“It’s a real unicorn,” he blurted at last, and from the corner of his eye saw the creature roll its eyes. The Sheikh, however, laughed.

“Indeed it is! And he will bring magic to my line, spread my fame across the world,” and he scowled, his face black with fury, transforming that urbane expression to something deadly. “When he submits,” he snarled. “But as God created the world - and all possible worlds,” he added, shooting Bruce a sly sideways glance, “and then gave him dominion over the animals, so I shall win dominion over this creature. He will submit. And now you must leave.”

Zachariah touched him on the shoulder, and for a moment Bruce was tempted to fight; but he could still see the armed guards all around them, and knew it would be futile.

 _I’ll be back for you,_ he thought as loudly as he could toward the now forlorn unicorn.

 _Please, hurry,_ replied the quiet voice in his head, and it was so filled with despair that Bruce could have wept.

__

_~tbc~_


	5. Drifter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The despair in Pan's voice was deep enough to tear at Nicko's heart through his own grief, and the two men clung to each other in shared pain as they wept.

****

  
_~Chapter Four~_

_Drifter_   


Zachariah held him back after they had left the building, and the two men waited for the Sheikh in silence.

By the time he joined them he was glowering, his expression troubled; when he noticed Bruce also wearing a frown he shook himself, controlled his face until it was the calm, sophisticated mask that he always presented to the outside world. He stopped in front of his putative guest, well aware of the effect that his presence often had; he loomed, and made sure that the man before him was in no doubt as to his superior physical strength.

“You may not be aware,” he began, and Bruce felt himself nailed to the ground once more by the strength of that that gaze. “But I have many shamans in my employ, and they have informed me of your... connection to the infernal worlds beyond. And even if they had not, the reaction of the beast in there would have given it away - he is nothing if not highly intelligent.”

The glare intensified, and Bruce felt anger stir deep in his chest. This man could not just intimidate him like this, control something that was never meant to be confined and get away with it, and he didn’t care how rich and powerful the bastard was. If it killed him, he was going to take the man’s toy away and set it free, even if it wasn’t today.

“You will not interfere,” continued the Sheikh, “you will not inform anyone of that which you have seen here today. Because it would be a tragedy were anything bad to happen to either yourself - or your colleagues,” he added, and directed his glance to where the riding party were just returning in a clatter of hooves and a swirl of tasselled and belled tack. “Here, or in the UK. Or in flight; that would be even worse, would it not? All those innocent people.”

Bruce just inclined his head, expression tight with anger, and let himself be led away by Zachariah to rejoin the party; the Sheikh watched the foreigners herded into their transport from his position by the unicorn’s prison, but didn’t move until his aide rejoined him.

“Zachariah,” he said softly, “that man will have to be watched. Carefully.”

His servant bowed, and went to do his master’s bidding.

~*~

By the time Bruce got back to his hotel room he felt as though the top of his head was going to explode.

He had sat - quiet and controlled - in the Range Rover as it made its way back to the hotel, listening to Lisa’s excited chatter about the marvellous ride she had enjoyed across the desert. The magnificence of her mount, and the way that the landscape had just flowed beneath the animal’s hooves as though it could fly....

Even so, once they were headed back up to their rooms she had touched his arm, concern in her eyes.

“What’s the matter? You’ve been chewing on something since we left there. I know that Sheikh is a scary guy, but what did he say to you?”

He sighed, and shot her a rather weak smile. “Ah, it’s nothing. Nothing I can do anything about, anyway. I’ll see you at dinner, OK?”

With that he left, striding through the lift doors as soon as they opened, taking himself back to his own room before she could say anything else. Now, with the door shut and locked, he could explode in peace.

The laptop bag was carefully laid on the bed - whether it contained computer or goblin he didn’t think either would react well to being thrown through the window - and stepped back. Then he clenched his fists, threw back his head, took the deepest breath he could manage, and demonstrated to the empty room just exactly why he was sometimes known as the Air Raid Siren.

~*~

When he opened his eyes and began to breathe a little more normally again, he spotted Bob sitting cross legged on his bed, fingers still stuck firmly in his ears and eyes screwed shut in apparent pain.

“Everyone’s a fucking critic,” he muttered.

He opened his mouth to carry on speaking, but the goblin leapt to its feet and waved its arms, eyes darting around the room; when Bruce frowned, the little beast went into a complicated pantomime involving covering his ears, then his mouth, then gesturing to the empty room. Bruce frowned, so Bob rolled his eyes and repeated the little dance. Eventually, the meaning became clear: _the walls have ears. Not safe to speak._

Bugs? The hotel room was bloody _bugged?_

“I think,” said Bruce slowly, watching the goblin for any repeat of his spastic game of charades, “that I need to go for a walk. Clear my head.”

Bob grinned, winked, shot him a thumbs up - and vanished.

~*~

The hotel was set in sumptuous, landscaped grounds, lush gardens watered and cared for in defiance of the weight of the desert hanging over it from so close by. Small birds twittered in the trees, and fountains tinkled amidst the luxuriant foliage. The air here was cooler, moister, the microclimate afforded by man’s protection a welcome relief from the blast-furnace heat and desiccation of the desert.

Bruce walked for a while, warring with his natural impulse to fight, to challenge, to overcome what vexed him in any way he could. He was a man of direct action, not one for sneaking around the shadows, pretending to be something he was not; this type of subterfuge and secrecy simply didn’t sit well with him.

Plus, there was the whole goblin issue. It was beginning to bother him, and had been nagging at the back of his mind since the conversation with Davey the night before.

Obviously, from his association with them, he knew that they weren’t as stupid as they often appeared. And Bob had been with him since soon after Lars had died, the whole goblin nation mourning with him over the death of the his small, loving - but frequently clumsy - shadow. 

But never before had Bob showed this level of... cunning, he supposed he’d call it. And it was unnerving, as Davey’s words had been; yes, he’d known goblins had a language, but hadn’t really ever thought about whether they could pass complex ideas and concepts between each other using it. He began to feel rather embarrassed that he’d never, not once, considered learning it.

He stopped in front of a fountain, the tinkle of water as it splashed from one bowl to another soothing to his rapidly overheating mind. How much had he missed? What did the goblin think of him? Did it hang around because it wanted to, or just out of some sense of duty to its kind?

He hadn’t always been terribly considerate of it, and he began to feel rather guilty.

A pressure against the side of his knee and there leaned the object of his thoughts, one skinny arm wrapped around his leg and eyes tilted up with an expression of adoration. He looked down, and shook his head.

“You’re not as stupid as you look, are you?”

Large amber eyes, pupils contracted to slits in the brightness of the garden, widened. Bruce chuckled.

“I think you and me are going to have to have a little talk when we get home, aren’t we?”

The smile was slightly sheepish, but appeared genuine enough. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and sighed.

“So now what?”

Bob thought for a moment, then made walking motions with his fingers, looked around the garden as though searching, then put his fingers against his forehead to indicate horns. Then he made a motion with his hips that had Bruce snorting aloud, the meaning behind the gesture clear.

“Go find Pan. Well, yeah. I don’t understand why he hasn’t made contact--”

The goblin crossed his wrists, as though tied, then covered his eyes and mouth with his hands. When he took them away he frowned, turning down eyes and mouth - even drooping the tips of his ears - to look utterly bereft.

“--unless he can’t, yeah. So how long will it take?”

Bob shrugged, then made three passes of his hand over his head. Up to three days? Possibly. Bruce nodded. “I’ll be back in the UK by then - we fly out tomorrow evening, but you know that. Are you going to be OK?”

Bob nudged Bruce’s knee with his shoulder, stretched the lipless mouth into a wide, good humoured grin, and winked. Bruce snorted. “Fine. Well, all things being equal I’ll see you in three days, then?”

He held out his hand for Bob to shake, and the goblin stared at it in surprise for a moment. Then, as though concerned that it might explode, he took it, and they solemnly shook hands. Then he stepped back, bowed, and vanished again.

Bruce heaved a huge sigh, and headed back to the hotel. He certainly had plenty to think about for when he saw the little beast again, that was for sure.

He was blissfully unaware of the unfriendly eyes that watched his departure, or the voices that hissed his name between teeth clenched with anger.

~*~

Things within the Harris household were no less tense. Davey had dropped everything and rushed immediately to Steve’s place, as had Janick and H; all three claimed that they’d had enough of being family men for the moment, and that it was no trouble to help. Neither Nicko nor Steve believed a word of it, but they were damn grateful for the company.

But the frustration of not knowing was beginning to tell on them all, and the atmosphere grew thicker by the hour. They were all doing their best to hide it from the kids - Steve’s children were surprised but delighted to have so many of their ‘uncles’ in attendance- but as time ticked away the moment it was all going to fall apart crept ever closer.

Nicko was having the hardest time. He harassed Davey to try scrying spells, and nagged H and Janick to use their gifts from Faery to try and summon help; he snarled with frustration when told - patiently and repeatedly - that contacting anyone was a bad move until they had more information.

It all came to a head just after breakfast one morning when they were waiting for Bruce to return.

“Dammit!” he roared, crashing his fists on the table and making bowls and mugs jump, “how much worse can it get? They’re dying, Steve, and if we don’t do something they’re all gonna be gone and that’s just not right, is it? It’s about bloody time we did something and you know it, Harris!”

Steve wrung his hand across his eyes and sighed. “We are not having this conversation again, Nick.”

“Yes we bloody are! I want to know what you think is so much ‘kin worse than all those poor bloody unicorns ripped to pieces over there when we might be able to do something about it! You’re the bloody Prophet, right? Right?”

Davey sighed, and cocked an eyebrow at Adrian. “Here we go,” he said. H nodded phlegmatically, and took another piece of toast. Janick sat back, keeping his mug of tea out of harm’s way as the ‘discussion’ got louder, and shook his head.

“Any second now,” he agreed.

A crash and two chairs overturned, Nicko and Steve now bellowing in each others faces; the other three gave them room, understanding that this was something that needed to happen - although they hoped that it would blow over with nothing harder than words being exchanged.

A change in the texture of the air, a curl of sulphur stench and a deep, grinding vibration through the floor stopped them. Davey eyed Steve.

“Do you get many earth tremors in Essex?”

He shrugged. “Not as a rule.”

“Then what--”

The shadows behind the kitchen door thickened, bulged away from the wall; all five men watched for a second, then bolted to the other side of the room. Pressed back against the counter they stared at the ominous form, which pulled itself into a more-or-less humanoid shape while still emitting the grinding sounds, the horrible vapours coiling away from it like noxious steam.

“What,” said Adrian under his breath, “the _fuck_ is that?”

Before anyone could even to try to think of an answer the shadow began to fracture, shards and splinters breaking away to evaporate before they hit the floor. The shape inside fought harder, brushing huge hands against itself to rid the last clinging wisps of the material that had imprisoned it. 

Once it was clear, the hooves made small clicking noises on the flagstones as Pan stepped forward, both his eyes swollen shut, blood, bruises and soot staining his skin from head to toe. He cocked his head at the men still transfixed, frozen with shock, on the other side of the kitchen.

“Gentlemen,” he managed to grate out, before the strain became too much for his abused system, and he keeled over with a crash to the unyielding stone floor.

~*~

It took all five of them to bully the semi-conscious satyr upright long enough to get him into a chair, slumped over the table with his head on his arms. Then there was the overturned furniture to put right, more tea and coffee to be procured--

Dave slid a mug along the table toward the crumpled form of the forest God. He tipped his head, and eyed it suspiciously.

“Some healing draught to make me well?”

“No,” replied Nicko, his voice a stern growl, “a nice hot sweet cup of PG Tips. Now get it down yer.”

He gave a quiet snort, then pulled the mug toward him and cradled it in his hands, rolling it between his palms as he tried to gather his thoughts. Steve noticed that several of the fingers that clutched the mug were smaller, looked softer than the rest; in fact, as though they were new grown, and he turned his head away at the thought.

“Aye Prophet,” rumbled Pan, “I have been sore abused of late. And I should leave - I am putting you all in danger just by being here.”

Nicko gripped his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “No mate, you stay right here. We’ll handle anything that comes through - right boys?”

Steve opened his mouth to object - which would have started another fight, if Nicko’s expression was anything to go by - when the door from the lounge crashed open, and Lauren stormed through. Eyes flashing she advanced on them, her frown as ferocious as her father’s when he was angry.

“What the _hell_ is going on in here? I’m trying to get some work done and all I can bloody hear is crash bang wallop and--”

She spotted Pan, and stopped.

“Dad?”

“Yes love,” he replied, having trouble keeping a straight face. Pan was looking woebegone, and the others all wore expressions as of small boys caught up to no good. His daughter had his fire, all right.

“Why is there a dirty great satyr sat at the kitchen table?”

Pan managed to sit a little straighter, and his expression became somewhat pained. He opened his mouth to object, but she raised a palm toward him, shut her eyes and gave her head a sharp shake. “No, on the other hand? I don’t want to know. I’m going to grab a cup of tea and go back to work, and if you all could keep it down to a dull roar in here that would be great.”

Pan shut his mouth with a snap and looked to Steve for support. He shrugged, while four variations on ‘yes ma’am’ were heard from the others. When she bent down to retrieve a clean mug from the dishwasher, however, the familiar leer began to creep across Pan’s face, and he tilted his head to get a better look. Steve reached across the table and slapped him on the arm.

“Oi. You can pack that right in, mate.”

Lauren had spun round when she heard the slap, and now scowled at the still leering satyr.

“And it’s a pervert as well. Oh fantastic. Another one. No wonder it gets on with you lot.”

She got her tea, and began to storm off out of the room, paused, then returned to stand at Pan’s shoulder and glare at him.

“Just so you know, goat boy? I prefer my men a little less hairy. All that fluff. Ew.”

And with that she was gone, the kitchen door rattling in its frame with the force and sincerity of the slam she gave it behind her. Pan looked at Steve.

“Your daughter.”

“My eldest, yeah.”

“Formidable.”

“No shit.”

“But worth--”

“Don’t even think about it.”

Pan slid back down to rest his head on the table once more. “And now he tries to remove my will to live,” he complained into his folded arms. 

The three amigos fought down sniggers, Nicko sat back with a sigh and Steve buried his head in his hands. “It really is going to be one of those days, isn’t it?” he said, and groaned.

~*~

Once order was restored Pan began to speak, his usually smooth voice roughened by abuse - and emotion.

“Before I begin, you should know that my presence here brings with it... consequences. You will no longer be able to sit out the battle that rages in my world. You are... committed.”

Nicko cleared his throat. “We were committed from the moment the bastards started killin’ unicorns. Talk, Pan.”

The God nodded, rubbed one hand across his eyes. He looked tired, almost grey with fatigue; he’d been given one hell of a working over, if the bruises and blood were any indication. And something in his expression told them that it had gone far, far beyond a simple physical beating.

“Then I would suggest that protective spells are woven around this place. David,” and he blinked slot eyes at Davey, who was leaning forward to catch every word grated out. “Contact the magic users. They are besieged in the centre of their power, but they will be able to assist you. You have the athame?”

“Never leave home without it these days.”

“Go, now. They will be waiting for your word.”

“But can’t we--”

“We’ll fill you in later,” Steve rapped out, the tone brooking no argument. Davey shrugged.

“Come on then you two - you can give me a hand.”

The three men trailed out, Davey muttering under his breath, Janick shaking his head, and Adrian scratching his chin whilst casting worried glances back over his shoulder at the battered form of the huge satyr.

Once they were gone, Pan shook his head slowly, the curls that normally swung across his eyes glued together by crusted mud, blood and sweat. “The situation is dire,” he sighed. “It began some time ago, although we - the powers - were not aware of it. Not all of the High Fae were exterminated, as you know.”

“We should have made sure of the bastards,” Nicko grouched, but Pan shook his head no.

“They are the children of Faerie, as am I. She will not permit willful extinction.”

“What about the bloody unicorns!” yelled Nicko, and Pan’s swollen eyes drifted closed with the pain in his voice. “They’re bein’ bloody exterminated! I’ve seen it. And felt it and smelt it and - it’s fuckin’ horrible, is what it is.”

“It is also,” Pan continued, when Nicko had himself under control once more, “not happening in Faerie.”

“ _What?_ ”

Both men spoke together, their faces showing the shock at Pan’s words. Steve held up his hand, shook his head, tried to understand what Pan was saying. 

“Wait, wait. What do you mean, not happening in Faerie? Nicko’s been there. He’s _seen_ it.”

Nicko agreed with a harrumph. “High place, mountains, cold. Bleak as all ‘ell, it was. Mind you, would have been kind of beautiful too if it wasn’t for what was happenin’ there, but that’s beside the point.”

The smile that twisted Pan’s face was sad. “And you think that there are not such places in your world?”

“But how could I see it, then? I didn’t think we could see anything that happens here, like. ‘Arry’s been explaining it to me - you can see that other place through dreams, but not here, ‘cos there’s not enough magic here.”

“The unicorn’s need of you was great enough to broach the barrier that has been erected around them, and overcome the grey reality of this plane. They are hidden, then stolen away from Faerie - we have managed to keep some safe, but too few, too few.”

“What about--” Nicko hesitated, unwilling to say Farasha’s name; names were power, and the trust that she’d placed in him when she told him hers had not been given lightly. Pan understood, and nodded. Compassion filled his green and amber eyes, and he took Nicko’s hands.

“She is safe. But the colt--”

His brief hesitation said it all, and even Steve groaned aloud.

“No,” moaned Nicko, and covered his eyes with his free hand to hide the tears.

“The colt is lost. We tried to save him, but we couldn’t. We failed him.”

The despair in Pan’s voice was deep enough to tear at Nicko’s heart through his own grief, and the two men clung to each other in shared pain as they wept.

_~tbc~_


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well, friend Davey—are you ready to go hunt a dragon?"

****

  
_~Chapter Five~_

_Blood On The World’s Hands_   


By the time Bruce showed up things had calmed down a little. Lauren had finally lost patience with the lot of them, bundled her brothers and sisters into the people carrier and set off for Dave’s house. The last thing she did before departure was to instruct her father that he was to call her if decided to go swanning off to Faery, and that he should hose Pan down in the garden before he started to stink up the house.

“My lady!”

She stormed up to the God and tipped her head back to glare into his face, hands on hips. “You’re covered in mud and blood and you smell. Plus if you don’t wash all that crud off you’re going to get an infection.” Using one sharp-nailed forefinger she poked him in the chest. “And if it turns out you’re not housebroken we are going to have Words when I get back.”

She stalked off to say goodbye to the others, all of whom were struggling to keep straight faces at the satyr’s shocked expression; she left with a final wave, and Pan regarded Steve with that deep, amber gaze.

“Formidable woman, your daughter. And she is not wed yet?”

“Yes she is, no she’s not, and you keep your hands off her.”

Pan’s expression was pained. “Merely an observation, Prophet.”

“It had better be.”

Before the pair could argue the point any further, the sound of tyres crunching on gravel alerted them to another arrival. Bruce paused for a moment when he got out the car; he hadn’t even taken the time to change out of his uniform, and looked tired. Pan perked up a little when he saw him, which made Steve snort with amusement.

“I see. Just get one out of your sight and you’re after another?”

Pan cocked an eyebrow at him, then smiled. “And you have never felt desire for more than one individual at a time, Prophet?”

Steve blushed. “That’s not the point. And you can stop thinkin’ about--”

“Arguing already, Steve?” said a familiar voice, followed by a crash as Bruce spotted Pan and dropped his flight case.

Unfortunately, he didn’t take the time to check on his physical state before he flung himself at him, and thus it was but a handful of moments before the rest of them were disentangling the two, helping them up and dusting them down again. Bruce’s eyes went wide when he saw just how badly hurt Pan was, and the forest God smiled ruefully even as he fingered the fresh lump on the back of his head.

“Your enthusiasm is gratifying, Bruce,” he rumbled, “but a little overwhelming.”

Bruce’s exclamations of horror at Pan’s condition were interrupted by Janick’s arrival from the barn. “Come quick,” he panted, “you’ve got to hear this!”

And he was gone again. Swearing under his breath, Bruce led the charge out to the barn.

~*~

The circle of power glowed on the floor of the old barn, a figure within it talking in quick, high tones to Davey. He was nodding, making notes on a pad that he’d pulled from his pocket, asking the shimmering shade questions that made no sense to the rest of them. He turned to greet them, waving them closer.

“This is Darwin - he’s in charge of the magic guilds over there since the old High Wizard was killed. Darwin fought with me when we went to get the Fae last time--”

“They do not need to know my history, friend Davey,” said the tall magician, and his voice was jovial; underneath it, however, was a strain that they all understood. Even through the shift and blur of the connection they could see that the wizard looked exhausted; things must be going badly in Faerie for such strain to be showing.

“Yeah, sorry. But he’s got some stuff you need to see.”

They assembled around the glowing circle, the wizard within it sketching a deep bow when he saw Pan.

“My Lord, there are many will be relieved to know that you are safe. However, I will extend the projection so that you may all see the scale of our problem--”

From the wizard’s hands rose a bubble that expanded to fill the space within the circle. He could still be seen within it, and pointed out particular features of the image while they watched.

“Our main keep is some distance from the old central stronghold of the High Fae - you can just see it in the distance, there. Beyond,” and the wizard cleared his throat, “beyond where the forest used to be.”

Pan had made a strange noise from deep within his chest, and Bruce grabbed his arm to steady him; for where once had stretched a massive expanse of greenwood, now all that remained were burnt and twisted skeletons, their death agonies preserved in the charcoaled twist of their limbs. Smoke still twined up lazily to the sky, and in the distance it became thickened, as though the fires still raged.

Darwin sighed. “Our attackers saw that the creatures of the forest--”

“My children,” choked Pan, his eyes huge with grief.

“--were aiding us. So they,” and even the wizard had to pause, clearing his throat again before he continued, “they burned the forests wherever they could. I am sorry, my Lord. We did what we could. The goblin tribes also aided us, but see here,” and he indicated a blasted area, the ground covered with sharp-edged rocks and pitted with craters, “they attacked the trolls with what friend Davey here has called ‘rockets’.”

“Oh God,” said Bruce, “they blew them up?”

The wizard sighed. “Indeed, sir. In the resulting confusion the tribes fell to squabbling amongst themselves and we have received no aid since. The people of Faery are scattered and lost, my friends, and that is not the worst of it.”

“Christ,” muttered Steve. “What else?”

“This,” said Darwin, and swung the point of view across to where the besieging force clustered around the base of the tower. The tanks were enough of a shock, but the huge reptilian forms that paced the perimeter had Pan cursing aloud.

“With the unicorns so depleted,” continued the wizard sadly, “it appears that the dragons are free once more.”

~*~

Davey had chased them out of the barn and they were gathered once more in the kitchen, grim faces all around.

“This is nuts,” grumbled Janick. “Dragons?”

Pan - who was still very subdued after seeing the scorched and dead forests - shrugged his huge shoulders and sighed. “The dragons are one of the oldest races of Faery. But they became too numerous, and not only ravaged our fair land in their greed but were spreading to other realities as well; the Powers decided that they had to be controlled, and they were shut away.”

“Where?” asked Steve, and Pan shrugged again.

“Away. Does it matter? It was a business of magic and power - they were not killed, merely held. And it was the bright power of the unicorns that held them there.”

“So now that the unicorns are,” and Nicko cleared his throat, “dyin’, they’re out?”

His voice sinking ever lower and more despondent, Pan tilted his head before he replied. “That’s not entirely it. They would have managed to break out with the unicorns gone, but it would have taken more time than this. We would have had time to strengthen the barriers, find a way to keep them confined. Which means that someone has let them out.”

Bruce groaned. “This is a nightmare.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” muttered Steve, pushing his chair back. He got up, paced the kitchen; all eyes followed him as his heels marked the length of the flagged floor, heavy brows drawn together as he concentrated. “So what we have,” he growled, half to himself, “is a force besieging Faery that has magic and guns.”

“And dragons,” added Pan gloomily.

“And dragons. And we have to find the last few unicorns and put some sort of plan together to defeat the opposing force.”

“Yeah,” agreed Janick, “once we know who they are.”

There was a silence, only broken by the dull thud of Pan’s head hitting the table in apparent defeat. Bruce patted him on the back, and eyed Steve where he now leaned against the doorframe, looking very unhappy indeed.

“Well, if it helps,” he said slowly, “I know where one unicorn is.”

~*~

Davey returned to a scene of utter pandemonium.

Nicko was yelling, up on the tips of his toes, alternating between whoops of delight and demands for Bruce to talk faster before he beat seven shades of shit out of him. Pan was asking questions at the top of his voice, Steve had got between Pan and Bruce - and H, along with Janick, had retired to the side of the kitchen furthest from the melee.

Davey edged around the countertop and joined them. “Noisy in here, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I’ve put more coffee on,” nodded H calmly, as though an enormous barney between half of the band and a forest god from a different plane of existence was an everyday occurrence. “And I think Janick’s making tea.”

“I’ve put the kettle on,” he agreed, as affable and steady as ever.

The third member of the trio squeezed in next to them, and they watched the scene grow ever more frantic for a minute.

“So what’s going on?”

H cocked his head, and without unfolding his arms used one forefinger to emphasise his words.

“Bruce says he knows where a unicorn is, and everyone was really happy until he said it was in Dubai. Nicko wants to jump in a plane and race out there mob handed, Bruce says no, Pan wants details before he can make plans, and Steve’s trying to stop them beating the shit out of each other. That about cover it, Jan?”

Janick’s voice was muffled as he searched the fridge. “Apart from the fact that ‘Arry’s about out of milk, yeah.”

Nicko’s wildly waving arms had clipped Steve around the ear, and he was now snarling up into the drummer’s face with every indication that his unhappiness was about to be expressed physically. Nicko, furious and stressed about the whole situation, was daring him to do so; Bruce was telling them both that they were behaving like children and even Pan had begun to growl under his breath.

“Think we ought to stop them?” Dave asked his friend. Janick poured boiling water over a tea bag and thought about it, eventually echoing H’s resigned shrug.

“Have fun trying,” he said, and the glint in his eye was wicked.

Davey concentrated for a moment, then took a deep breath and folded his palms together. H and Janick watched with interest as he chanted a string of nonsense syllables under his breath, then lifted his head and squinted at the squabbling group gathered at one end of the table.

“And be _still_ ,” he snapped, bringing his hands together in a slap that shook the floor.

Silence fell in the kitchen, broken only by the contented burble of the coffee pot and the grumble of the kettle heating a fresh fill of water; even the big clock over the door seemed muted, the heavy tick no more than a whisper in the quiet.

“Impressive,” said H, with raised eyebrows and a nervous scratch of his beard.

“Fuck yeah,” agreed Janick.

The argument had carried on for several moments before the protagonists realised that they could no longer hear themselves, or each other. They blinked at each other, then turned to eye Davey where he stirred milk into his tea; he grinned back at them, unrepentant, and wiggled his fingers hello.

Bruce opened his mouth to yell, then tried to look down his own nose when nothing emerged.

“...!” said Steve.

Pan rolled his eyes, and Nicko stuck a finger in one ear, swivelled it around and examined the end of it suspiciously.

“You need more milk, ‘Arry,” said Janick mildly. Steve’s gesture in reply indicated that right now Janick knew just where he could put the milk, and that the sun did not shine there.

Pan’s laughter, though silent, was hearty. Bruce just flung his hands in the air, and even Nicko - once he’d tried to speak a few times and realised that he couldn’t make so much as a squeak - folded his arms and subsided with a huff. Davey grinned at them.

“Are you all ready to listen now?”

The four men nodded, and he snapped his fingers. Bruce let out a warble, grinned when he heard his own voice; Pan growled at him, and Steve laughed. Nicko just glared.

“I hope you’re gonna say somethin’ good, Davey, ‘cos--”

He held up a hand in warning, and the big man shut his jaw with a snap. Davey looked at Pan. “I need your help for something. If it works, then I think I might just have a plan....”

~*~

The barn was once more cleared, and as Davey puffed his way round in a circle with a piece of chalk he explained what was on his mind. The others stood back and watched, fascinated by their friend’s control of the magic he’d become so skilled at wielding; Nicko just leaned on the doorframe, chewed on a nail, and worried.

“If we can talk to Diana,” said Davey, almost to himself, “which is where Pan comes in, cos I’m sure she wouldn’t talk to me, then it might be possible to get a hook into one of the dragons--”

“Whoa,” said Bruce, wide eyed, “a _hook_? Are you _mental_?”

Pink faced with effort Dave straightened, waved his chalk in Bruce’s direction. “Not a physical hook - it’s like a way of getting close to one without it knowing you’re there. Sort of a cross between invading its dreams and hypnotising it. Then while we - that is, me and Pan - are talking to it, you and Bob can slip through and find the goblin tribes.”

“They being the only coherent force left in Faerie,” mused Pan, stroking his beard and eyeing the blonde with new appreciation. Dave blushed.

“Yeah. Then when Bruce is ready to come back Bob comes here, we get the dragon again and out he comes. Easy.”

“An awful lot of ‘maybe-s’ and ‘might be-s’ in there, Davey,” growled Nicko from his post by the door. Steve elbowed him.

“It’s the best plan we’ve got--”

“The only plan we’ve got,” Janick pitched in.

“--so get on with it, right? Pan, will Diana talk to you?”

“She will if I mention your name,” grinned the God, and Steve blushed. Three years earlier Diana and Pan had made an appearance at one of Steve’s pre-tour parties - a fancy dress ball, naturally - and between them caused good-natured chaos amongst the guests. Diana in particular had taken quite a shine to Steve, and ended up turning him into a stag and pursuing him across the fields and through the woods near his home, finishing the chase at the centre of a maze that was somewhere between Faerie and this world. That night they had conceived a child; she had sent him a picture of herself heavily pregnant, but of child or goddess he had never heard another word.

He’d almost forgotten about it, in fact, until the forest God saw fit to remind him. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, glared at the floor, and did his best to ignore Janick and Bruce retelling the story with some glee.

They soon fell silent when Pan and Davey began their magic, however. Bowls of strange incense smoked on the periphery of the circle they had drawn, and the two voices chanted around each other words that seemed to make no sense to the ears and minds of the listeners. Every now and again a word, a phrase, would seem familiar, understandable; then the sound would swirl like smoke, and the meaning would vanish into the air again.

Unlike the battered and fuzzy connection between the mages, once the connection cleared this time it was a globe of crystal clarity that showed tall trees, a green glade lit by a setting sun, a chuckling stream that circled one side of the meadow. 

It actually took a moment for the men to spot the tall, stern figure of the goddess; she stood silent under one of the arching birches and watched them coolly through the connection. Pan bowed deeply, as did Dave, and she looked beyond them to the ring of watching men; all bar Steve also bowed, and he inclined his head in acknowledgement, then smiled.

“It must be desperate for you to attempt communication from the grey planes in such troubled times, horned one,” she said to Pan. He rose to his feet, and gave a short nod.

“Indeed, my lady. Lord Dave of the magic--” and here Davey blinked up at the satyr, astonished at the epithet, “--has a plan that may help us to rid ourselves of the intruders, and their scaled allies.”

“Then by all means, tell me,” she snapped, with an imperious wave of one pale hand. Bruce nudged Steve and smirked, impish.

“Just your type,” he whispered, “you always liked the bossy ones.”

Steve shot him a dark glare, and he smothered his laugh with a cough. Diana, who had been listening to Dave explain his plan with a frown on her alabaster brow, glanced up at the blushing Steve and his snickering companion.

“Before we go any further,” she said, another hand gesture bidding Dave be silent, “I think that there is someone you should meet, Prophet.”

She looked beyond the range of the window into Faerie, and the smile that broke across her face was quite unlike the stern, austere expression they had become accustomed to the goddess wearing. In fact, it looked almost maternal; and once the individual she had spotted stepped into range, it was easy to see why.

“That’s not possible,” murmured Nicko, and the goddess laughed gently, rumpled her hand through the boy’s dark curls.

“Time moves differently for us, unicorn-friend - or had you forgotten? Prophet,” she said, and her tone became more formal once more, “I would like you to meet your son. Stephanas, this is your father, the Prophet of Faery, who rescued us all from ourselves. Prophet, this is Stephanas, conceived after the hunt in the maze between your world and mine, and thus part of both.”

Steve was struck dumb. The boy, who appeared to be nine or ten years old, had his curls and piercing dark eyes; he tipped his chin up and eyed his father with that penetrating gaze, small shoulders back and feet braced apart, ready to flee or attack on his mother’s word. He wore a short tunic of forest green, belted at the waist and falling to mid thigh; his feet were bare and spattered with mud, and in one hand he carried a dead hare. The other held a bow, a quiver of arrows strapped across his back; he had his mother’s slender frame and sharp chin, but the attitude, stance and overall ferocity of the eyes was all Harry.

“Father,” the little voice piped, and Steve’s eyes went wide. He approached the window, dropped to one knee; Diana smiled as man and boy appraised each other, Steve’s face filled with wonder as he took in the firm limbs and supple frame of his son. His grin was so infectious that even the fierce little boy had to smile in return, and Steve had to snatch his hand back before he tried to reach through the window to touch the child’s face. He looked up at the goddess, and his heart was in his eyes.

“Our son?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Are you coming to kill the dragons?” asked the little voice. More than one man had to stifle a grin at Steve’s reaction; his affection for children in general and his own in particular was legendary, and having met the boy who stared at them all unafraid nothing would stop him from clearing Faerie from any and all who threatened the child. Which was probably, Bruce reflected wryly, why the wily goddess had done it.

Still, time for such reflection later - right now they had a war to plan.

Steve appeared to agree, because he shot the boy another one of those joyful smiles that was impossible not to join in with, even though his words were serious. “Yeah. I’m going to come in there and get the lot of ‘em - so now we have to go back to planning it, OK?”

The boy nodded, and glanced up at his mother; she nodded and smiled, and with a last short bow to his father he ran out into the sunny meadow, accompanied by two of her hounds. Steve rose slowly to his feet, his stare following the running child until he was out of sight. 

“Good kid,” he said, then cleared his throat and stared into the goddess’s cool gaze, almost challenging. She smiled, and hooded her grey eyes.

“He has the very best blood from both worlds, Prophet. Now. Lord Dave of the magic?”

Davey broke off from his quiet conversation with H, and trotted back to the edge of the circle. “Yes ma’am?”

Her smile this time was almost gentle. “I believe we have a battle to plan,” she said, and fingered the short sword at her waist. Pan growled agreement, and Davey began to explain his ideas once more.

~*~

It took almost an hour to finalise the plan, but in the end they were ready. Diana, now accompanied by her son who watched the whole process with bright black eyes, made ready to pass the final ingredient of the spell that would enable Pan and Dave to snare the attention of the dragon; Bob the goblin stood braced at the edge of the circle, poised to sprint across the boundary as soon as she began to move. The exchange had to be timed so that both the item and the goblin switched places at the exact same time; that way there would be no imbalance between the worlds to alert the dragons that their enemies were up to no good.

“On three,” said Dave, and goblin and goddess both nodded.

“One,” rumbled Pan, and Bruce went to one knee beside the goblin.

“Two.”

“Good luck,” whispered Bruce, “I’ll see you over there.”

“Three!” roared the satyr, and the goblin was off. At the exact same moment Diana threw the spear in her hand, Davey launching himself to catch it in mid-air as soon as it crossed the boundary. Bruce stared into the ring, desperate to see if the goblin had made the crossing; sure enough, there was the boy helping the small grey-skinned creature up off the ground, and it turned to shoot Bruce a cheerful thumbs-up.

Dave saluted with the spear, and with a final bow in Steve’s direction the goddess broke the connection.

Quiet ruled the barn once more until Pan cleared his throat.

“Well, friend Davey - are you ready to go hunt a dragon?”

_~tbc~_


	7. Different World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then they would take back Faery, and heaven help anyone who stood in their way.

****

  
_~ Chapter Six ~_

_Different World_   


Despite everyone beginning to feel the strain of their extended vigil, Dave insisted that he begin preparation for snaring the dragon immediately. The sooner they could snag the mind of the gigantic beast the sooner they could send Bruce through to rouse the goblin armies; after the selfless sacrifice - all inspired by Bruce - of his previous goblin companion he was seen as the hero of the goblin nation, and would probably have little trouble rousing the various tribes to follow him.

Once he had the cooperation of the goblins he could sneak back through to their own world - dragon permitting - and then set out to free the unicorn from the clutches of the Sheikh. They had another BruceAir trip planned to the Desert Rock festival; with the aid of Pan and Bob - and more than a touch of Davey’s magic - they hoped to be able to bring back the unicorn safe and sound. 

Then they would take back Faery, and heaven help anyone who stood in their way.

“It still sounds bloody risky to me,” muttered Steve as he watched Dave and Pan stop to confer on some of the finer details. Bruce shrugged.

“Like we have a choice? If the dragons aren’t stopped - never mind whoever is sending men and guns and rockets, Harry, fucking _rockets_ \- through then Faery is going to fall. And then this world will be next. Can you imagine dragons here?”

“And we has to save the unicorns,” insisted Nicko firmly. “If we don’t do something they’re all gonna die - and we can’t let that happen, can we? Be a pretty bloody poor show if we did.”

“Everything is interconnected,” added Pan, his deep rumble sending a shiver through them all. “And if Faery should fall...then it would bode ill not just for this world, but for all the multifarious worlds out there beyond the thickness of a shadow.”

He nodded his great head, and everyone thought about his words for a moment. He still seemed haunted, as well he might; the death of so many of his children had hit him hard, and although he appeared to be coping with it the strain was starting to show. Bruce went to his side, touched his arm.

“Hey, are you gonna be able to do this? Because if it’s too much maybe we can leave it until the morning--”

Pan sighed, and leaned against Bruce for a moment. Then he straightened up, and his smile - although small - was genuine. “No, we must do this now. There will be time for me to grieve later - it will not restore the dead, and action may save the living. So let us work - Lord Dave of the magic!”

Davey grinned, and waved his hand at the complicated setup on the floor of the barn. “Ready when you are.”

“Then we shall begin,” said Pan, and the two voices wove together once more in magic.

~*~

__

_The dragon slept._

_He and his brothers had been called from their exile, awoken and returned to the world of their birth by a wizard not of that land, but from the grey planes; until the door to Faery had been reopened he had been little more than a charlatan, a trickster on the dusty streets of his home city._

_Then everything had changed._

_The magic became real, and at times it spun out of control; eventually the authorities had noticed, and the magician had found himself in a cell under sentence of death, for that land did not tolerate magic. They thought that if they killed all the wizards the magic would vanish, and they would never have to think about it again._

_The dragon snorted, even in his sleep. Trying to stop magic was like trying to stop the tide, but humans were ever stupid and vain._

_Then the man of power had heard of the magician’s plight, and managed to bribe him out of danger - on the condition that the magician worked for him, and only him. Because the man of power was cunning and cruel - just like a dragon, and a satisfied little curl of smoke drifted up from the nostrils of the sleeping beast - and knew that magic could bring him things that mere money and human influence could not. He desired to rule not only his homeland, but the whole world._

_And worlds beyond worlds._

_The dragon shuffled into a more comfortable curl, and cracked one eye open. Its brethren still patrolled, as they should, and the men from the grey planes kept their watch with their weapons of steel and ‘high explosive’. Whatever that was._

_Certain that everything was as it should be, the dragon went back to sleep._

_And dreamed of blood...._

~*~

Pan watched the sleeping dragon, a steady stream of words focused through the glowing spear. He kept the bright steel tip moving, sweeping back and forth in complicated patterns through the weave of magic; the dragon’s mind was captive, and while they held it so then Davey could sneak Bruce into Faery with none of the enemy any the wiser.

They were, effectively, using the mind of the dragon as cover; the others would not see or sense a thing, just the usual background noise of one of their own, dreaming. Davey tipped his head at Bruce, who licked his lips and nodded, expression intent on the spot where the window to send him through would open.

“You sure this is going to work?” H whispered to his friend. Dave shot him a dirty look, and he leaned back with eyebrows raised, his expression protesting louder than words that he’d only asked.

“When you see it open,” said Davey, shaking his arms to loosen them from the shoulder, “run. The very second it clears, OK?”

Bruce’s nod was sharp, attention drilled into the spot on the barn floor and every muscle tensed for the jump. Dave lifted his voice to the others, eyes flickering between Pan’s murmuring form and Bruce’s tense wait.

“OK, stand back. If it all goes tits up, leggit. Got that?”

“Comforting, our Davey. You sure you know what yer doin’?”

“Shut up, Nicko.”

“Just asking....”

H and Steve took an arm each, and dragged a quietly protesting Nicko to the back of the barn, stowed him next to Janick and told him to stay there. Davey nodded, and with a wave of his hands and a sprinkle of something that smelled like corpse dust began the magic.

~*~

Bruce didn’t dare look up. He could feel air currents around him, the pressure on his skin varying from moment to moment; things half seen crowded the edge of his vision, and not for the first time he hoped like hell that Davey knew what he was doing. His friend’s fascination with the magic had always been amusing, something of a hobby - and now he was having to take it deadly seriously, relying on that skill to throw him through the skin of one universe and into another.

Sweat began to trickle down the small of his back, and he flicked his tongue along lips that suddenly felt as dry as sand. The air tasted strange, laden with ozone and other, less identifiable substances; God alone knew what the mad buggers were throwing around, but he certainly suspected that he’d fail a drug test if the airline had insisted he take one right now--

Pan’s voice wove with Dave’s and the spot on the floor in front of him began to glow; the door was forming, and now he just had to hope that they could open it for him. Without dropping him right in the laps of either a dragon, or a human tank crew, or perhaps a machine gun nest - that would be fun - or any one of a million other nasties his horribly fertile imagination could supply him with.

His shirt stuck to his back.

The glow swirled, domed up from the floor. This was what he was waiting for, and he felt some of the tension relax somewhat; the dome stretched up, became a column, and he bared his teeth in a smile. They could do this--

The sudden increase in the volume of Pan’s voice came as something of a surprise, and he could hear Davey calling out, mending some thread in the weave of magic or so it seemed to him; the air jerked, currents back and forth with enough strength to tug his shirt away from the river that was the skin of his back. Something was going wrong, must be; what, he didn’t dare to guess, and so he kept his eyes on the place where the door was clearing, clearing.

Shouting behind him. _Come on, come on!_ A whistle, a shriek of air; pressure released, and the cough of wind that pushed grit against his face smelled of stone and moss, the almost-metallic tang of rock so strong in the air he could taste it. The air within the temporary gate cleared, and despite the shouting from either flank he jumped, limbs pumping furiously until he crossed the boundary.

One huge effort and he was through, the sudden drop and wheel through the void almost familiar - but no less frightening than it had been the first time.

He just had time to wonder if everything was OK, and then he fell into the void and was lost to the world.

~*~

The silence that fell after Bruce’s departure was deafening. 

In part because the explosion that had ruptured the magic after he left had flung them all to the ground and damaged the fabric of the barn had been huge, and their ears still rang with the harmonics. Small creaks and groans told them that the building, although damaged, wasn’t going to fall on them; each of the men picked themselves up and squinted into the gloom, searching for the others but almost afraid to cry out in case any of them couldn’t answer.

Pan raised his hands, the glow that formed between them driving back the shadows for a moment; nicko was the first to rise, turn to drag Janick from where he’d fallen into the rubble beside him. Bruised and a little dented they picked their way across to where the forest God waited, his deep amber eyes taking in each one of them as they reached him.

“Well, that went rather well,” said Davey, brushing dust out of his hair.

Steve stalked across to him, and glared at the rather large hole in the concrete floor of the barn.

“You think?” he grumbled.

~*~

Sharp stone sliced through the knees of his jeans, and the rest of the ground rose up and clouted him on the side of the head rather less than a second later.

Bruce rolled onto his back, concentrated on getting his breath back, and wondered where the hell he was.

Hell, however, appeared to be right; a gust of wind brought a choking gasp of sulphur to his nostrils, and in spite of the subsequent coughing fit he managed to roll to his knees. By the time it had passed and he raised his head, more details were sliding through into his travel-fogged brain; he seemed to be in some sort of valley, bleak grey cliffs rising around him, smells of stone and sulphur and damp mosses and quiet, secret things curling across his senses. It was not quite dark, the light hanging in that uneasy space between day and night that his human eyes had the most trouble with; shapes seemed to jump out at him from the stones, figures that became nothing more than rocks when he looked a little harder.

Nothing else, though. No welcoming committe, but on the other hand no drag--

A great crack, like Nicko slapping his palms together but loud as an explosion, burst from behind him. Already knowing what he was going to see - and hoping with every fibre of his being that he was wrong - Bruce turned to look over his shoulder. Sure enough, there in the sky above him perched on a finger of black stone, sat a creature that his sane, sensible brain told him could not exist. Something like a giant reptile, but oddly birdlike in the precision of its movements the dragon cocked its head at him, narrowed the glow of green eyes and gave its wings another of those explosive claps.

He didn’t bother to stare any longer, make any attempt to take in the spikes that ran along the beast’s neck and over its back, the long jaws that opened to show a glimpse of razor sharp teeth; no, he just turned his back and ran like hell.

The roar that shook the canyon walls told him all he needed to know; the dragon was after him, and unless he was very lucky indeed he was _screwed._

~*~

The floor of the canyon was slick, wet with rain or snowmelt - _don’t know don’t care_ said his mind - shards of broken rock and remains of landslip, nothing green to give him shelter, no caves to duck into that he could see. Not that he could take the time to look, of course. 

He just ran.

If nothing else, he thought as he hurdled a boulder, changed direction like a hare jinking to avoid the hounds, he’d kept himself in shape over the years. And he was used to running and jumping, picking a direction with one part of his mind while the other was occupied with something else. Who knew that being a frontman with a metal band would help you when under attack by a dragon?

A whoosh, a blast of displaced air and he saw flame, the screech of it leaving a long scar along the rock wall he’d been heading for. The dragon was toying with him, that or it couldn’t get a clear shot; he knew it had flapped overhead more than once, had to turn and begin its run again to try and toast him where he stood. Or ran. Whatever.

The trick was to keep moving, foil the gigantic creature with constant direction changes, force it to keep high enough to watch, even land a time or two to leap awkwardly across or through a particularly difficult patch of scree or boulder field. But time was running out; he was winded, and yet the dragon didn’t even seem to be breathing hard. No, it just kept coming, and he was beginning to wonder just how Steve and the others were going to explain his disappearance to his wife.

The dragon turned above him, the draught from its wings throwing sand and dust up in a cloud; Bruce ducked, tried to rurn and took a bad step, stumbled across a patch of gravel and fell heavily. He rolled, knocked silly by the fall; he could hear the dragon circle overhead, and knew he was done for.

Until hard hands grabbed him under the arms, behind the knees - anywhere they could get a grip, including a particularly hard pinch on his ear - and the ground itself changed shape under his backside, the rocks rising up with a rattle and shriek of breaking stone. He fell back into the darkness, and his last thought before he was blinded by the closing of the ground was to wonder if he looked as startled as the dragon that watched the landscape swallow him whole.

~*~

“My lord?”

It was still dark. Very very dark.

“My lord, open your eyes.”

Well, it was going to be dark. He still had his eyes shut. Duh.

A damp cloth - which smelt musty - was wiped carefully across his face, and he raised a hand to bat it away; voices murmured around him, the echo seeming to indicate that he was in a cave of some description. Underground. Made sense, considering that to all intents and purposes the valley had done what the dragon could not, and eaten him.

“My lord, please. We mean you no harm.”

It was a familiar sound that persuaded him to co-operate. A sound that, indeed, any of the band could have identified; under normal circumstances the individual making said sound would have been shouted at, and had random items thrown at their head, but right now Bruce had never been so glad to hear a goblin fart in his life.

He opened his eyes, and blinked at the two faces staring anxiously into his own. One he recognised, and he caused quite a stir when he sat up and flung his arms around the knobbly form of the goblin.

“Bob!”

Skinny grey arms wrapped around his neck, and man and goblin hugged for a while before Bruce became aware that the other goblin was clearing its throat, making the sort of harrumph noise recognised across all worlds and universes as a gentle attempt to get the attention. He put Bob down, and they grinned at each other.

“My lord, time is short.”

Bruce rubbed his hand through his hair, and for the first time lifted his gaze to take in his surroundings.

“Where am I?” he asked, and winced. 

“Faerie,” said the second goblin, keeping a completely straight face. Bruce glared at it.

“I know that,” he snapped. “Thing is, am I where I was supposed to be?”

Bob and the other goblin exchanged a long suffering glance, and Bruce got the definite impression he was missing the point. More sounds, whispers and groans from the darkness that surrounded them, and another figure made their way into the light. 

A troll, it had to be a troll. And it had to be a troll because human women didn’t get that big, have grey skin apparently made of granite, and amethyst eyes - Bruce took a closer look, surprise overcoming fear, and realised that yes, her eyes really were amethyst, no metaphors here. Gems. Set into her face where human eyes would be....

“Whelllllcome,” she said, voice slow and grating, “hhhhhommmmme.”

~*~

The tunnels were made of trolls.

Literally, as in they lined the walls of the caverns so that what he had at first taken to be spectacularly subtle and clever rock art was, in fact, living creatures. They plated over each other, arched to form the roof and laid flat to make the floor, and they all watched him as he walked down the sandy paths accompanied by the goblins and the lady troll. She’d tried to tell him her name, but in the end he’d given up any attempt to pronounce it and asked if she would mind being called Gem.

Her smile was wide at that, and he thought he detected a note of pride in the way she walked, a strut that was not usually seen in the steady plod of the trolls he’d met before. Bob just kept walking, now and then running up to give Bruce’s leg a quick hug; he seemed delighted to see his human companion in this creepy dungeon, and if it weren’t for his constant, cheerful company Bruce would have been scared to death. 

Never mind the trolls, never mind the eyes that rolled and watched from every angle, the whispers from just beyond the edge of hearing; no, it was the third member of the little welcome party that was really beginning to worry him. The goblin spoke perfect English, in itself unusual but not implicitly terrifying.

No, the fact that it had calmly said that it had been surgically modified just to be able to talk to him should he ever return, and the things that it was explaining to him in that cool, accentless voice were what was frightening him. If he’d known half of what he was going to walk into here, he would have sent Steve--

“But you see, my lord,” said the goblin, who had insisted that he needed no name because he was merely a facilitator, a mouthpiece for his people, “we have been waiting for you to return ever since the dragons were called forth. We are your people, and we have suffered mightily in your absence; will you not help us now?”

They stopped on a ledge, their navigator resting his staff on the eyebrow ridge of the troll that extended its torso out to form the little promontory. And when Bruce looked down into the enormous cavern he swore under his breath; it was huge, and lit from edge to edge with flickering campfire lights around which huddled creatures from the tiny gnomes to the spindly goblins, furred and scaled and every size and shape and form up to the massive trolls who kept the mountains back with the layers of their bodies.

“Oh my God,” he whispered. Because down in that cavern were _millions_ of them - and they were all, apparently, waiting for him to save them.

~*~

“So now what do we do?”

Davey had retired to bed with a headache, and Pan had vanished into the gardens to pace and swear under his breath about the five men in the house. Nicko was being unhelpful, H and Janick were making every attempt to keep Steve controlled and on the whole, things were not going well.

“We wait,” said Steve, and rubbed his hands across his eyes with a sigh. Before he’d stalked off in a huff Pan had let it slip that the spell hadn’t gone wrong... exactly... but that things hadn’t gone _quite_ the way that had been expected. In fact, a third force had intruded, stabilised and added a boost of power from a most unexpected direction - somewhere in their own realm. And whatever it had been, it had been strong; strong enough that it made Pan nervous, and was undoubtedly the source of the destructive blast that had almost wrecked the barn.

“Do they know Bruce is there?” Nicko had asked. 

Davey and Pan had exchanged glances.

“Probably,” they said, and that was when Nicko had started shouting that they’d betrayed the unicorns and now they’d kill the last of them and this had been a stupid idea from the start and anyway, which one of them was going to tell Bruce’s wife that he’d been eaten by a ‘kin dragon?

He’d subsided in the end, and now the four of them sat together in morose silence around the kitchen table, each brooding on their own rather dark thoughts.

“So we just sit here,” grumbled Nicko, and Steve’s head came up with a glare at his friend that had lost none of its fire for the weariness that dogged each of them that sat and waited.

“Yeah, that’s right. Until Diana or Pan or someone can tell us what’s going on ever there we just sit here, and we wait. Bruce is no fool - he can look after himself.”

Nicko avoided the glare and stared down into his mug, rolled it between his broad palms and sighed.

“What a ‘kin mess,” he muttered at last, and none of the others could think of a more fitting way to sum up the situation.

_~~tbc~~_


	8. The Fallen Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lars had been silly and fun, and Bob was faithful and exasperating but still affectionate, in his own way; this creature seemed colder, even a little arrogant.

****

  
_~ Chapter Seven ~_

_The Fallen Angel_   


The fire was small, but the cavern was tall enough to carry the smoke up and out without it blinding the small group that huddled around it; the weirdest thing, Bruce thought, was the way that all the way up the walls into the vanishing darkness he could see the firelight reflected from the glitter of troll eyes.

 _Thousands_ of them.

Gem stood behind him, her arms folded, and eyed the surrounding throng. He’d been hustled into this smaller side cavern to meet - as far as he could make out - representatives from the different tribes that made up the goblin nation. They muttered and whispered amongst themselves, the little spokesman goblin addressing them in a variety of languages, and Bruce just nibbled his lip and waited for the attention of the odd translator to return to him. He knew he’d be treated as a kind of hero, but the way some of those eyes (some slitted, some green, some grey, all utterly inhuman) regarded him was giving him the creeps.

He was used to fans, but this level of adoration was... frightening.

Bob squatted by his ankle, and the other goblin addressed the throng from a perch on top of a boulder (although Bruce couldn’t be sure if it was just a rock, or another troll) on the other side; when he paused for breath, Bruce tapped him on the shoulder.

“Excuse me--”

“My lord?” said the goblin, and raised one wrinkled grey eyebrow. Bruce decided he didn’t like this creature. Lars had been silly and fun, and Bob was faithful and exasperating but still affectionate, in his own way; this creature seemed colder, even a little arrogant.

“What the hell is going on? Who are you? What do you all want me to do? And who,” he added, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the massive stone figure waiting, motionless, behind him, “is Gem?”

The goblin shook its head. “All in good time, my lord,” it answered, and went to turn back.

Bruce grabbed its arm. “No, now,” he snapped. 

It felt as though every creature in the cavern held its breath, and the tension was only broken by a very familiar little sound.

“Bob. That’s vile.”

Gem snickered. At least, he assumed that’s what the sound was; it sounded to him like a pan full of gravel being given a shake, but when he glanced over his shoulder at the troll she’d schooled her features back to stony solidity, and only a quick flare in the gemstone eyes suggested a wink.

The goblin hissed air between its teeth, and Bruce prepared himself for an argument. To his surprise, Bob spoke up; he had no idea what the goblin was saying, but there was a lot of arm waving and flashes of yellowed teeth. More calls chimed in from the floor, and before long the translator was waving his staff and yelling for quiet. Once he had it, he grumbled something under his breath and turned back to face Bruce.

“Fine. Fine. We are all here because while the trolls shield us with their bodies the dragons, the High Fae, and the magic of the outsider cannot find us. This is troll land, and all they can sense is the overall awareness of the rock itself; we are hidden behind and under it.”

“I get that.”

“The creature you call ‘Gem’,” and there was a slightly supercilious note in the goblin’s voice that Bruce _really_ didn’t like, “is the current Troll King’s offspring. His eldest daughter, in point of fact. She is a candidate for the throne, but her position must be consolidated by some act of service to the Troll nation. To whit, she is your bodyguard and protector.”

Bruce swivelled to look up at the huge, chiseled curves of the living rock behind him, and got another one of those flared winks in reply. “Oh,” he said. “Wow. Why are her eyes--”

“She has allowed herself to be modified to be able to function under the sun,” snapped the goblin.

“Sssssheeeeeee in dayyyyyhlllliiiite,” she growled back at him, and smiled. Bruce swallowed, hard; he supposed the gesture had been friendly, but to see that mouth gape wide to display razor sharp ridges of granite was a little unnerving, at best. Then the goblin’s words sank in, and he flicked his attention back to it, eyes wide.

“ _Modified?_ ”

“Indeed, lord. As have I, in order to communicate between the various peoples and yourself. A role I have been trained for since birth, I might add. That is how she can speak to you, and why I speak all the languages of all the goblin tribes.”

He stopped, and looked smug. Bruce swivelled back to stare at Gem, and the unnerving grin widened. 

“They gave you vocal chords?” he asked, feeling rather queasy at the thought.

“Zhiliconnnne inplannnnts,” she rumbled, and winked. Bruce snorted, then burst out laughing; at least the troll had a sense of humour he could understand. “Nheeeeed prrrractisssssss,” she added gloomily, and Bruce patted her on the arm with a wan smile.

“As to the why we are here,” replied the goblin, ignoring the exchange between troll and human, “we are waiting for you. After the demise of your former companion at the last battle of the Opening, the tribes gathered in conclave; it was the first time they had come together in peace for - well, for longer than even the trolls can remember, and their memories are made of stone. We did not wish to lose the respect of the other races that we had gained from helping to defeat the High Elves, but did not know how to live together in peace; it was only by referring to the examples left to us by your former companion that we were able to make some headway, however tentative.”

“Wait,” said Bruce, shaking his head and wondering if he’d missed something, or fallen harder than he thought on his head when he arrived, “what? Lars? Are we talking about the same guy? About three feet high, grey skin, relaxed attitude to personal hygiene and very loose grasp of the term personal property?”

The goblin flinched. “Aye. During the time he spent accompanying you within the grey planes he learned much, and told us of it in some detail. His words have become something of an inspiration to us all, lord.”

Bruce just blinked at him. This was all news to him.

“How?”

A gesture, a sigh, and a small goblin scurried forward almost buried under a huge pile of scrolls that he endeavoured not to drop. The goblin waved long grey fingers at the pile, and raised that eyebrow once more.

“He wrote letters home,” he said.

~*~

It turned out - much to Bruce’s astonishment - that Lars had been rather more than he appeared. 

Youngest son of one of the richest and most powerful goblin families in Faerie he had been something of a black sheep, more interested in wenching and carousing than in the serious business of politics, warfare, and keeping the High Fae happy so that they were not all turned into toads and stepped on. He couldn’t be bothered with any of that, and drove his family to distraction by getting into constant scrapes, winding up the establishment and generally doing as he damn well pleased. Bright but unfocused, he’d got himself and his family into all sorts of trouble until they were in despair at what to do with him.

They’d even sent him to join a group of goblins that studied underground with a wise old troll - a very prestigious position, apparently, some sort of finishing school for promising young goblin nobility - but Lars had become bored with the routine and frustrated with the discipline, and was thrown out for playing mischievous tricks on the troll’s acolytes.

Bruce snorted with amusement, remembering his own schooldays, and felt a pang of sympathy for the goblin whose presence he still missed. Bob patted his knee, eyes compassionate, and he waved the translator to continue.

Then he’d found his way through to the grey planes - a phrase Bruce was becoming familiar with as a reference to his own world - through one of the occasional wormholes that popped up even when the door was locked, and that was when everything had changed.

“He made his way to the Prophet,” said the translator, and Bruce noticed that all the creatures in the cavern had fallen silent, engrossed in the story, “and found him a sad, fallen creature, near destroyed by guilt and grief. Then you arrived in your quest for answers, and forced out of our saviour the truth of his despair; then you showed your own strength and compassion and did not abandon him in his hour of need. You even forgave the horned one after his dastardly attack on your person, a noble and great hearted gesture if there ever was one.”

A soft noise from the gathering, and Bruce opened his mouth to protest; a pressure on his knee made him look down, and Bob put one finger to his lips in a shush gesture, and winked. Bruce subsided, and listened to the story with everyone else.

“Then you took the time to explain your rationale to him, and from then on he was determined to understand you, and to help you. He began to send letters home, not to his family but to the few friends he had left that he knew he could trust; word of your exploits and the recovery of the Prophet from his despair began to spread amongst us.”

The translator looked up at Bruce and smiled wryly. “The High Ones paid us no heed. Most of our species had been exiled when they closed the door, and the ones that remained did so purely as quarry to amuse the High Ones in the hunt when they were of such mind. And servants, of course, creatures to be used and killed on a whim.”

“Theyyyy made phhhhhavements,” said Gem, and then shot out her tongue to moisten her lips with a gritty little sound, like feet on a beach, “from my peeeeeople.” She nodded gravely, meeting Bruce’s eye with her deep purple gaze. “And mhhhore. Worse,” she amended, and bowed her head. Bruce reached out and touched her thigh; he remembered what H had told him he’d seen in the dungeons of the High Fae’s palace, and she had every reason to grieve.

“So word spread,” continued the translator, “and we began to wonder if the time was truly at hand.” He began to pace, his voice rising. “And indeed, the door was opened by dint of the blood brother’s magic, and our people began to return home; with them came our prodigal son, filled with a new fire and a determination that none of us had seen before. He travelled from tribe to tribe, cajoled and argued and fought with them until he had their word. He was a force amongst us that we had never seen before.”

He spun and levelled his staff at Bruce, his voice rising to ring through the tall space of the eye-spangled cavern. “He swore that we would not be treated as nothing any more. He sang to us of bravery and courage, and the chance to rise up to take our place alongside our more noble-born brethren. He told us of you, my lord, and of his faith in you - faith that was vindicated at the last battle.”

“No, wait, it wasn’t like--”

“For did you not choose to ride at the head of our people, when you had been asked to ride with more noble tribes?” asked the translator, and Bruce had to nod. Well, yes. He had.

“The Prophet himself gave us a token of his trust in us!” cried the goblin, and the crowd in the cavern began to shift and murmur, “and in return we rescued his offspring, risked all our souls to deal with the most fickle and savage of all our brothers. But in doing so we lost our guide, your companion, who paid the ultimate price.”

Bruce put his head in his hands, and Gem’s huge fingers gripped his shoulder. He patted her hand, finding the stony grip oddly comforting; he still had trouble remembering that time, and the selfless sacrifice of his friend.

“You grieved with us, lord, all through that long night as we bade him farewell, and we swore then that we would respond to your call whenever and wherever it was.”

“Yes but-”

“In order to prepare for that day each of the great tribes trained and prepared a favoured son or daughter to deal with you, to act as your liaison when that call came. Alas, the dragons and the evil from your world ensured that only Gem and I remain of that favoured throng.”

“But it hasn’t been that long!” protested Bruce, and the translator shook his head. 

“Time moves differently here, lord. It has been many generations for us since the door was opened, but your presence and fire runs through us still. We had to hide when the dragons came; we are all here, all the tribes, waiting for you to come and drive the evil from our fair land once and for all.”

He stepped back, and went to his knees before Bruce. All the assembly did, going to their knees and bowing their heads; Gem stood proud behind him, her arms folded across her large chest and her gaze fierce. Bob scuttled off into the shadows, returning a moment later with something familiar in his hands.

Lars’ sword.

He didn’t think that the pain would rip back quite as strongly as it did. He had to fight to get the breath past the lump in his throat, the remembered grief binding his chest as strongly as it had the day he’d said goodbye to his friend.

Bob also knelt, but he kept his head high and offered the hilt of the sword to Bruce.

“Will you lead us, lord?” asked the translator. “Will you use us to mend the hurts of our fair world, and make the high lords and ladies remember our presence here?”

Bruce took the sword, and looked down into Bob’s bright eyes.

“I will,” he said firmly, and the cavern erupted with joy.

~*~

There was chaos underground. Bruce insisted that he had to return to his own world to plan how they were going to take Faery back, once they’d rescued the unicorn; the various tribes wanted him to stay, and destroy the invaders before he went after what could quite conceivably be the last unicorn. And whilst they appreciated the value of the noble beasts in the abstract, they were hungry for battle and revenge for the hurts inflicted on them all. In the end he decided that a bit of showing off was the only solution, and cocked an eye at Gem.

“Can you put me on your shoulder?” he whispered, and she nodded gravely. He winked at her, drawing her face into that slow smile that he was already getting used to. “Be ready.”

Still arguing he paced with the translator out onto the floor of the cavern, the throng drawing back at his approach. As soon as he was sure he had a good distance he spun, ran back toward the motionless troll and used the rock he’d been sitting on to make an enormous leap more or less right at the middle of her chest.

He hoped that her reflexes were as good as he thought, or his little display would end with him going splat against the solid column of granite and sliding ignominiously to the floor.

He was right, and her reflexes were better than he’d anticipated; in fact, she caught him lightly about the waist, and used his forward momentum to boost him high enough to place one foot solidly on her shoulder and the other on her forearm. He would have fallen straight over the other side but for the fact that his mobile platform shifted enough to help him balance, and all without so much as a stumble. He must, he thought as he drew breath to bellow, remember to thank her.

“Enough!” he roared, scything his arms wide, and a stunned silence fell across the throng to see him balanced high above their heads. He put his hands on his hips, a ferocious glare sweeping across them all. “If you want me to lead you then listen to me! We’re going to have one chance to do this and one only - do you understand?”

Murmurs, and he thanked whatever power had sent him here that he was used to dealing with recalcitrant crowds. 

“I said _do you understand?_ ”

This time it was a roar, and a fierce grin spread across his face. He had them on his side now, and he just had to keep the momentum going and they’d do anything he asked.

“You’ll follow me?”

Another bellow in reply, arms and claws and wings and sticks waved in the air.

“Then do as I say and we can’t lose - we’ll send those fuckers back to where they came from, destroy the High Fae, kill the damn dragons and show this world once for all that the goblin tribes are not to be fucked with!”

Bob scrambled up Gem’s side, and passed him the sword. Bruce didn’t even pause, but held the sword straight up in the air to a resounding roar of approval from the crowd; he didn’t know who was responsible for it but a streak of light hit the blade and it flared with brave purpose, the flash from the blade lighting up every face turned up toward him.

“Who’s with me?” he yelled, and Gem was almost bowled over in the rush.

~*~

Pandemonium, but at least nobody was arguing. Everyone in the cave wanted to touch him, to say a word or two - even if he hadn’t a clue what they were saying - and he felt as though he swam in a sea of touching hands, eyes that glowed all colours of the rainbow and skins grey, green, scaled, furred or leathery. He kept the sword up, grinned and laughed and touched as many of them as he could, Gem, Bob and the translator having their work cut out to push the throng back. Then a cool breeze made the lights flicker, and a scent of green things and woodland swept across the throng; they drew back, opened up an avenue between their bowed heads to allow a new visitor to walk to greet their human leader.

Bruce rested the short sword against his shoulder and braced the other hand on his hip as he watched the newcomer approach. She dipped her head, amusement in the grey eyes, and smiled.

“It seems you have amassed quite a force,” said Diana, the slender form of the huntress seeming quite out of place in this assemblage.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “they’re a good bunch of lads. And when I come back to them we’re going to sort these bloody Fae out once and for all - right guys?” and he raised his voice for the last two words. The bellow of agreement brought a light to the eyes of the Goddess, and she shook her head at him with amusement.

“The Prophet himself could do no better,” she agreed smoothly, then her expression schooled itself to seriousness once more. “I have managed to drive the dragon that waited above away - you did a good job in evading it, by the way. Outstanding - for a human.”

He bowed, his eyes glittering at the Goddess. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“However, you will need a powerful emissary to accompany you on your return, else the forces ranged against us will no doubt feel the opening of a temporary gate between worlds.”

Bruce looked puzzled.

“I thought Pan and Davey--”

“Could hide you alone, indeed. But you will not be returning alone.”

“Now wait a minute--”

Bob immediately clung to his leg, chin on his knee and wide eyes pleading. Gem moved up to stand behind him, one huge stone hand on his shoulder; the translator gestured to someone out of his line of sight, and a squad of eight goblins - armoured and armed - trotted through and crashed to an impressive halt, their leader throwing a smart salute.

“In fact,” said the Goddess with a smirk, “it seems that there will be quite a few of you returning.”

Bruce glared at her, and her peal of laughter rang out across the throng.

~*~

As those that would be travelling with him got themselves organised Bruce beckoned the translator to him. He went to one knee, and regarded the wizened grey figure gravely.

“I need someone to keep this lot together while I’m away. And I think you’re just the creature to do it, am I right?”

For the first time Bruce saw a flicker of uncertainty in the goblin’s eyes, and felt something inside him relax. If he’d jumped at the chance without so much as a single doubt then he would have worried that the occasional arrogance of the creature might get the better of him; his hesitation before he lifted his chin and gave a firm nod made Bruce feel much better about his choice.

“Keep them safe until we come back, right? Don’t take any stupid chances. And you’re going to need something else, too.”

He offered him Lars’ sword across his arm, pommel first. A hush had fallen across the crowd as they watched the little scene being played out, and Bruce smiled at the awed expression on the translator’s face.

“His sword?”

“Keep it safe for me.”

The goblin bowed deeply before he reached out, tentatively, and touched the jewelled pommel. He took a deep breath, licked his lips, and took it; he raised it to the throng and had to fight down the proud grin as they cheered him. Bruce looked up at the crowd, and put one arm around the goblin’s shoulders.

“This goblin speaks for me, right? So do as he asks, and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Oh, dammit,” he said, turning to look at the trembling grey figure under his arm, apparently still in shock from the sudden turn of events that had thrust him into the limelight, “I have to call you something. You sure you haven’t got a name?”

The goblin swallowed, wrinkled grey throat twitching as he considered his answer.

“I was given a human name at my birth,” he murmured softly, eyes darting around as though he felt guilty even admitting that he had ever been known as an individual, “my sire named me for one of the Prophet’s first companions.”

“And?”

“I am called Dennis,” whispered the goblin, face blanching with the confession. Bruce fought down the guffaw, and contented himself with a hearty clap on the goblin’s shoulders that almost sent him flying.

“Well then Dennis,” he said, rose to his feet and reached down to shake the goblin’s hand, “look after ‘em, and I’ll see you soon.”

Dennis having been left speechless Bruce strode to join the group waiting on the crowded dais. Diana stood in front, with Gem, Bob and the squad of goblins behind her; she waved him to his place, and then called another forward. Bruce couldn’t suppress a groan when a slight figure darted through the crowd to scramble up beside him; he’d seen the boy before, and knew that he was going to have an awful lot of explaining to do when he arrived back in Essex.

“You are not pleased to see me?” the boy asked, brows drawing together into an all too familiar frown over the gleam of dark eyes.

“It’s not that,” he replied, and shot a glare at Diana. “Isn’t he a little young for this?”

She shook her head. “He is old enough and strong enough. Besides, I’m sure his father will keep him safe and he has learned much in his time with me. He is the son of a Goddess of this world, and I expect him to remember that.”

 _Cold hearted bitch_ , Bruce thought, and put one hand on the boy’s shoulder. He wasn’t surprised to feel that it was trembling, and pushed back an urge to drag Diana off somewhere more private so that he could give her a bollocking.

“Well then,” he snapped, “best we get off then, right?”

She smiled, raised her hands and began to chant. Within a handful of heartbeats the cavern and all those within it had begun to swirl, and Bruce’s last glimpse of the place was the myriad reflections in trollish eyes, every one wishing him a safe journey and a speedy return.

Promising just that to them all in his mind, he closed his eyes and fell backwards into the dark.

_~tbc~_


	9. Brave New World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Bruce is back! And dear god, 'Arry, you should see what he's brought with him!"

**_~ Chapter Eight ~_ **

**_Brave New World_ **

Steve was woken by a furious hammering on his bedroom door, and cracked his eyes open to see if it was light yet.

It wasn’t.

“What time is it?” he snarled, fighting the urge to just burrow back under his duvet and tell Nicko - for it was he battering and bellowing like a wounded bull - to fuck off.

“No idea but Harry you got to get up and come quick!”

“Why?”

“Bruce is back! And dear god, ‘Arry, you should see what he’s brought with him!”

He rolled onto his back, stared at the faint shadow of the beams across the ceiling of his darkened bedroom, and swore. “If it’s more goblins, I’ll kill him,” he promised quietly, and then with a roar to Nicko to fuck off because he was on his way, he set about dragging himself out of bed. He could hear Nicko making his way along the landing, banging on doors and making enough noise to raise the dead; he could hear quite a stir from downstairs too, Pan’s voice raised in apparent delight, and various mutterings from those members of his merry band who either hadn’t made it to bed at all or that Nicko had roused first.

“I’m going to kill the bloody lot of them,” he grumbled, threw on a robe and began to pad down the stairs.

~*~

Tired as he was he hadn’t been sure what to expect when he got downstairs - but it certainly wasn’t what he actually saw.

Bruce was standing in the centre of the kitchen, waving his arms and talking to Pan nineteen to the dozen, the forest God more alive and animated than at any time since he’d arrived. Davey was leaning on the counter, grinning at a small group of goblins that scampered and squeaked with excitement between the legs of their taller companions, and a small boy was examining the various notes and drawings held to the surface of the fridge by brightly coloured magnets. A very familiar goblin fidgeted at his side, picking at the door seal in an effort to open the fridge without anyone noticing. Steve took a breath to bellow, but before he could the light was blocked by a huge grey form that stepped in front of him, a bright purple gleam where eyes should have been examining him sternly.

“Harry!” cried Davey happily, and the huge creature rumbled something unintelligible and stepped back, with a surprisingly graceful bow.

“Prophet!” called Pan, white teeth gleaming in the dark skin of his face, his eyes snapping with the amber fire he’d worried none of them would see again, “Bruce brings unexpected news!”

“What the _hell_ is going on here?” roared Steve, waving his arms and giving them all his most ferocious, I-haven’t-had-my-coffee-yet scowl.

Bruce gave Pan a cheerful thump on the arm. “I told you he’d shout,” he said with a grin.

“You’re filling my house with fucking goblins and - what the hell is this... this... _thing?_ ” he yelled, ignoring the comment and pointing at Gem. She widened her eyes, but said nothing. 

“It’s a troll, Harry,” said Bruce. “And she’s got a name. She’s called Gem, not ‘thing’.”

“Why is my house full of fucking goblins and trolls-“

“ _A_ troll. Hardly an invasion.”

Steve ignored him. “Not to mention half man half goat there, and what the fuck is _he_ ,” and now he shot out an accusing finger at the small boy, who tipped his chin up and glared back at the enraged man with just as much fire snapping in his eyes as was being directed at him, “doing here?”

“Diana said we needed him.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he snarled, and stalked toward the coffeepot on the side. Pan watched him, arms folded across his chest and wearing a very amused expression indeed. “And get these bloody goblins out of here! I won’t have it, Bruce, I will not have them in my house stinking the place up.”

“Now Harry,” boomed Nicko’s familiar voice, Janick and H trailing after him into the kitchen, wide eyed at the ruckus, “don’t be like that.”

Even Gem took half a pace back from the expression on Steve’s face when he turned to face Nicko. The big man waved his hands in a placating gesture, and used the toe of his boot to scoop a goblin away from where it was trying to pluck up the courage to poke Steve’s toe with a short javelin. Amusing as it would have been, Nicko thought that the ensuing row would not have been helpful, on the whole.

“Gem here,” he continued, everyone else still holding their breath and waiting for Harry to explode and take Nicko’s head off, “is Bruce’s bodyguard, sent by the trolls to look after ‘im so she has to be here, see? And the same with the goblins. And it would look pretty bloody bad if the Prophet of the whole of ‘kin Faery threw his loyal subjects out of his house, wouldn’t it? So what say we put on a nice pot of coffee, there we go, and I’m sure Bruce will get this lot out of the way for a moment and you can take some time to wake up, cos I know you aren’t properly awake until you’ve had your coffee and it’s so late it’s early, so here we are....”

While Nicko distracted Harry with a wave of soothing chatter Bob and Pan helped Bruce round up the goblins and shoo them out, Gem ambling behind the group of men as they escaped to the lounge with their curious charges scattering before them. Pan was sputtering, unable to hold in his delight of the big man’s handling of the situation; when Nicko sneaked through a minute later and closed the door quietly behind him, he was greeted with a round of applause. He turned and bowed, eyes alight with mischief.

“I’ve left ‘Arry and the lad to get to know each other. You know him with kids - that boy will have him eatin’ out of his hand in five minutes, you know it. And then he’ll be the ‘Arry we know and love again and we can make some plans, right boys?”

Cheerful agreement from the others, and he paused to pat Gem on the rump as he passed her. “Fine figure of a woman,” he stage whispered, and to everyone’s delight she got a distinct rosy tinge to her craggy cheeks.

Nicko flopped into the last available seat at the end of the sofa, then glanced around the room. “Hang on, can’t let the lady stand,” he boomed, and patted his lap. “Why don’t you come sit on ol’ Nicko’s knee, eh? We can get nice and friendly.”

Gem glanced across at Bruce, who had rested his chin in his hand and was watching Nicko with an expression half exasperation, and half fondness. He flipped his free hand in a ‘well, whatever’ gesture, and the enormous troll moved through the room to stand in front of Nicko. She cocked her head, and gave one of her terrifying smiles; then she took his outstretched hand, hauled him up, and settled herself into his spot on the sofa.

It creaked in protest, but held firm.

Then she eyed Nicko once more, and patted her own lap.

Over the sound of the other men almost crying with laughter he deposited himself firmly there, leaning back into her shoulder and grinning. “Don’t mind if I do, love. We’ll have to be careful we don’t break Harry’s sofa, though, or he’ll be wondering what we’ve been up to--”

Gem blushed, and Bruce waved his hands and sat up straight, trying to get the situation under control before it got totally out of hand.

“Enough, Nick! Now, as for getting this unicorn out of Dubai, I think I have a plan....”

~*~

Steve sat at the kitchen table, mug of coffee in hand, and watched the boy explore. His feet scraped the tile, a small noise amongst the faintly heard chatter from the other room, the tick of the clock, electric hum of striplight and refrigerator and all the other not-quite-heard normal aural background of his house. 

“This is your home,” said the boy, and turned to cock his head at his father. It wasn’t a question, but Steve nodded anyway.

“Yeah,” and his mouth twisted into a wry half smile as a thought occurred to him. “Yours too, if you want.”

Where the hell had that come from? He lifted the mug, hid his momentary confusion behind a hefty swig. Yes, the boy was his - but how would he explain another child to the rest of his brood? One that had never been to school, had no birth certificate, none of the things that mattered in this world--

Except that he was his own blood. That was all that mattered to him.

He carefully put the mug back down and met that gaze like his own, the boy having come to stand behind one of the tall backed chairs that ringed the battered table.

“My home?” asked the boy, and cocked an eyebrow in a gesture that resembled his mother’s so closely that Steve chuckled.

“Yeah.”

“I have a home,” he said, and frowned. Steve shrugged. In some ways this odd, fey child was older than his years - but in others, still very much a child.

“No reason you can’t have more than one. One with your mother, and one with me.”

Stephanas slipped into the chair, laced his fingers together and regarded his father seriously.

“My mother says I cannot stay here. I have a job to do, and then I must return.”

Steve fought down the flash of irritation, and reminded himself that Diana was a Goddess.

“Well I say you can if you want to. And I’m the Prophet, so what I say goes - right?”

A small, shy smile curved the boy’s lips. “So I can stay?”

“Sure. We’ll just get these dragons sorted out and then I’ll have a word with her--”

Stephanas suddenly sat up straight, the pattern of his thoughts quicksilver across his face. “You have other children?” he asked, and Steve nodded.

“Sure. Six of ‘em. They should be back tomorrow.” Which was another point, of course - Lauren. Although, Steve reflected as he drank his coffee, she would as like as not just take this one under her wing with the others - it wasn’t as though she wasn’t accustomed to odd things around this house, after all.

“Brothers,” mused the boy.

“And sisters.”

“Really?”

Steve laughed. “Yeah. Including one big sister who’s going to tan my hide if I don’t let you get some sleep.”

“I will not allow her to harm you,” growled the boy, then yawned hugely. Steve rose, and offered his hand.

“Come on. You can use the bottom bunk in Dan’s room - he likes to sleep on the top but we keep the bottom one made up in case he has friends over....”

Wide eyed with tiredness, the boy took his father’s hand, and followed him up the stairs to bed.

~*~

By the time Steve rejoined his friends they were deep in discussion. Gem still had Nicko firmly in her lap, and Bruce’s entourage of goblins had ringed the group of men; their leader went to challenge Steve when he entered the room, realised who he was and bolted behind the sofa with a squeak. Bruce looked up at the crash of armour, and beckoned Steve in to join the discussion.

“Look,” he said, and pointed at the three dimensional map that hovered above the coffee table in front of them, “we’re playing the desert rock, right? So when we land if we--”

“What the hell is that?” Steve demanded, and poked his finger at the hovering object. It vanished into the glow of the miniature hotel, and left a swirl of powdery light when he pulled it back. Bruce clucked his tongue, his impatience clear.

“It’s a map,” said Davey with a grin. “Between me and Bob we figured it out.”

“I can see it’s a -- oh, never mind. So we’re going to desert rock, yeah.”

“Right. So we thought--”

“’Ang on,” interrupted Nicko, shuffling himself forward on Gem’s lap, “what about the crew? It’s all very well us dashing about and savin’ the world, but what about them? Not a good country to get into trouble in, lads. And you’re doing another one of your ego-flights, so we’re gonna have a couple of hundred fans with us too. And we’re not leaving them behind, no way.”

“They are not ego-flights!”

Nicko rolled his eyes and shot Bruce a wicked grin. “No, course not, you just fill a plane with fans and--”

“What,” sighed Steve, and pinched the bridge of his nose, “is the plan?”

“Right,” said Bruce, and flicked a piece of fluff he’d found down the side of the sofa at Nicko, “after the gig the crew is going to be loading up, the fans will be going back to the hotel and then the airport. It’s a big festival, lots of chaos, lots of trucks and planes and it’s going to take time for the load out. That gives us time to hit the stables and grab the unicorn.”

“Not _much_ time,” grumbled H, a frown of worry creasing his forehead. Bruce shrugged.

“From what Bob’s told Davey it’ll be enough. Gem can just bash her way through the wall of the building, we’ll have Pan with us--”

“Aye,” rumbled the deep voice from the shadows, bringing a yelp from a guard goblin who had obviously forgotten he was there.

“And whatever the sand demons are.”

“Sand demons?” Steve’s voice held more than a note of doubt. He’d grown up surrounded by various weird and wonderful entities, and if he’d learned anything it was that they could rarely be entirely trusted. Plus anything that used the name ‘demon’ just couldn’t be good news, no matter how you looked at it.

“Type of troll that got booted from Faerie and never went back when we opened the door. Anyway. Between the unicorn, Pan, Stephanas and Davey we should be able to bounce this lot back here, get to the plane, and fly out with nobody any the wiser.”

A brief pause while everyone waited for Steve to pick up the part of the plan they were all sure that Steve wouldn’t like. Sure enough, he thought through what Bruce had just said, caught the one big flaw, then exploded.

“ _What?_ No! Over my dead body Bruce, he’s too young, we are not taking him with us!”

“You’re forgetting something,” said Davey, sharing a quick glance with the forest God where he leaned against the wall, shaggy haunches folded, quiet in the shadows.

“I’m not forgetting anything! He’s just a kid and this is going to be dangerous--”

“He is not human,” replied Pan from the darkness, and Steve snapped his mouth shut on the rest of his sentence. The others watched him, wary of the anger that was notorious if any of his family were threatened; to their relief his expression shaded to one of chagrin, and he sighed.

“Yeah but--”

“No but,” said Bruce firmly. “We can be in and out before the damn Sheikh can call up reinforcements, and be away and into international air space before they can catch up.”

“Or shoot us down,” fretted Janick.

Seven appalled expressions focused on the tall man slumped in the corner of the sofa. Gem sighed, and patted his knee hard enough to make him wince.

“Whillllllllllll be fhinnnnnnnnne,” she rumbled. Nicko slid from her knee, and stretched until his back creaked.

“I hope you’re right, love - but why don’t we sleep on it, eh? Got a week or so before we have to do anything. Maybe a good night’s kip will sort it all out in our ‘eads.”

They bid each other a quiet goodnight and dispersed to their rooms, Janick's words running round their minds. If it all went wrong, the death toll could be horrific - and the consequences for two worlds could be even worse.

_~tbc~ ___


	10. Fear Of The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fear turned his stomach over when he thought about what they were planning to do. He was no fool; he'd been to war in Faerie, and seen enough violence in his own world to know that this wasn't going to be pretty.

****

  
_~ Chapter Nine ~_

_Fear Of The Dark_   


Steve poked his head round the door of his youngest son’s room, and watched Stephanas sleep. The boy was no more than a shape under the duvet, the light sound of his breathing comforting to a parent’s ear; just a boy, but so much more. A child, but one that already bore such power that Steve had no idea where it began or ended, what he could do, what havoc he could wreak - and yet still, just a child.

Fear turned his stomach over when he thought about what they were planning to do. He was no fool; he’d been to war in Faerie, and seen enough violence in his own world to know that this wasn’t going to be pretty. And sensible or not, he was going to be dragging a child - his child - right into the middle of it.

He sighed, and pulled the door to; he’d leave the landing light on, in case the boy needed to get up in the night. A shift in the shadows in another doorway caught his eye, and he saw one of Bruce’s coterie of guard goblins, green eyes wary in the dim reflected light. He pointed a finger back at the room he’d just left.

“Keep an eye on him, right? Any trouble, come for me first.”

A nod, and the creature faded back into the shadows. Sometimes, Steve thought to himself, it was too easy to underestimate goblins. Comical and clownish they may appear to be, but when it came to the crunch he’d rather have them on his side than on anyone else’s. The boy would be safe enough, for tonight.

~*~

Gem’s eyes threw enough light to allow Bruce to pick his way around the familiar room with ease. 

“Do you think we’re doing the right thing?” he asked her as he got into bed. He thought for a moment that she wouldn’t answer, but then her enormous shoulders moved in what had to be a shrug.

“No,” he agreed with a sigh, “I don’t know either.”

And with that uncertainty chasing its tail around his mind he settled down to sleep, watched over in his uneasy dreams by his ever faithful bodyguard.

~*~

Figuring out what to do with Gem had been the hardest part of their planning.

Bruce’s little gang of goblins were apparently invisible to most people - the occasional curious look followed by a shake of the head (as though something had been spotted from the corner of the eye, a wisp of movement that vanished when the attention was turned on it) but no more - just as Bob was. Bob - via Davey - had informed Bruce that keeping them hidden wasn’t going to be a problem when they went on the attack. Stephanas would accompany Steve, using Dan’s passport; the two boys were close enough in appearance that the minor deception would work, and the crew were used to seeing various of Steve’s children accompanying him on tour.

Which left Gem.

She refused to be left behind, once even resorting to simply picking Bruce up and holding him under one arm to prove just how strong she was, and that there was no amount of force he could exert that would stop her doing _anything_ , if she so chose to do it.

“Perhaps,” Pan rumbled from his place at the kitchen table, legs stretched out under it and shiny black hooves neatly crossed, “we can disguise her.”

The others stared at him through the rattle and bustle of breakfast time chez Harris. Lauren and the children had returned home, an uneasy truce declared between Steve’s eldest daughter and the satyr when she saw how good he was with the younger children, apparently happy to indulge in long games of hide-and-seek through the damp winter garden. The fact that he was unfailingly polite and had brought her several beautiful, delicate flowers (always left in a crystal vase on her dressing table) from who knew what corner of wonderland had done no harm either.

“How,” asked Bruce, eyeing his silent guardian where she loomed next to the door, “can you hide half a ton of troll? It’s not like we can just roll her onto the plane and claim she’s my pet rock. They already think I’m a bit odd.”

“There are ways,” murmured Pan, and narrowed his slot eyes at Dave. “Spells of disguise.”

“There you go,” grinned Nicko, sliding past Gem and patting her with some familiarity on the rump, an action always guaranteed to make the stone warrior blush, “just wave the ol’ fingers and make her look like the wife. No problemo, right love?”

H snorted, and helped himself to another slice of bacon. “You’ve got to be kidding, Nick. There is no way we can make _that_ \- no offense, Gem--”

“Nhoooooooone takennnnnn,” rumbled the troll.

“-- look like Bruce’s missus. There has to be some sort of, what did you call it, Murray?”

“A key,” replied Dave, now also staring at Gem with a speculative look in his eye. “The magic has to hook on to some aspect of the real appearance so that the rest can be twisted around it. Like a fulcrum.”

Steve whistled. “You really know your stuff, don’t you?”

The guitarist grinned, a pink shine to his cheeks showing his pleasure at the compliment. “I’ve had some good teachers,” he said.

Bruce cocked his head, eyes narrowed. “Does it have to be part of the body, this key,” he asked, “or on it?”

“Her,” said Lauren, smacking Bruce lightly on the back of the head as she passed him, “not ‘it’. Right, Gem?”

The troll bowed, and Lauren dropped her a wink as she herded several of the younger children out of the kitchen. Lauren appeared to approve of Bruce’s guardian; at least, she had been heard to comment acerbically, she wasn’t always trying to chat her up.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Bruce yelled through the door, but got no reply except for the rolling grind of trollish laughter. “I meant,” he continued, “can she be wearing something that you key to?”

Gem blushed a little as every eye in the kitchen focused on her, and her feet made little gritty sounds on the flagstones where she fidgeted.

“I dunno,” said Davey with a wicked smile, “but there’s one way to find out, right?”

~*~

It turned out that if Gem wore a - very large - security shirt, black trousers, and dark shades, Davey could change her appearance enough that she appeared to be a member of their security team. An extremely _frightening_ member of security, it had to be admitted, one that you would not want to meet down a dark alley at night under any circumstances, but a human one nevertheless. Although wearing clothes had taken some time for her to get used to; she had a very bad habit of scratching at wherever the cloth rubbed, and ripping it asunder under the assault of granite fingernails.

Still, by the time Bruce arrived fresh and ready at Gatwick to pilot nearly two hundred fans to the Desert Rock festival they were ready.

The others had left the day before, along with most of the crew and the stage set. The goblins were making their own way there - which made Bruce very nervous indeed - leaving Pan and Gem to accompany him in the guise of security personnel. Pan, of course, didn’t look too different, as long as you ignored the fact that his neat black hooves and shaggy haunches were now a rather more conventional human shape.

“Nice arse,” murmured one of the cabin crew to Bruce, as she watched Pan stride confidently across the tarmac toward the plane, “what’s his name, you say?”

The tall, saturnine figure in the security outfit turned to her with a smile, his hearing supernaturally sharp even in the unfamiliar surroundings of the airport. 

“Robin Goodfellow, my lady,” he said with a flash of even white teeth in his swarthy face, “and you are...?”

“Brenda,” she said with a blush and a smile.

“Well, Brenda,” he crooned, slowing his pace to walk beside her, amber eyes holding hers with a hint of promise, “we shall be sure to keep you safe for this journey. You may rely upon me,” he finished, and bowed to wave her up the steps to the aircraft itself. He tilted his head to watch her wriggle up the steps in her narrow skirt, buttocks clearly outlined under the clinging fabric.

Bruce smacked him on the arm.

“Stop that,” he hissed.

“Stop what?”

“Trying to get into the cabin crew’s knickers!”

Pan simply winked, and boarded the aircraft.

~*~

By the time he made it to his hotel room Bruce was about ready to throttle the lot of them. Pan had spent the entire flight flirting with anyone who so much as looked his way, and it seemed likely that he would spend his first night here leaping from bed to bed unless someone broke his legs, which at this point was under serious consideration. Gem, on the other hand, had been petrified - almost literally - and hadn’t uttered so much as a squeak for the whole flight, although she had managed to crush the armrests of her seat within five minutes of taking off. She was currently lying down in his bathroom, a cold cloth across her eyes, making unhappy rumbling noises under her breath every time she was spoken to.

The goblins had been popping in and out, although only Bob had been with Bruce throughout the whole rather trying experience. The others had given him various shades of hysteria with the way they would keep appearing right under the noses of airport security, diving through the metal detectors and vanishing with a mostly-unheard shriek when they set all the alarms off.

When Bruce had seen one of the x ray scanner operators at Gatwick frown and shake his head at his screen he had turned his back and pretended not to have noticed the goblin darting into one side of the machine. If nothing else, the beast was probably doing something obscene inside the equipment, and Bruce, quite frankly, didn’t want to know.

So when Steve and the others trooped into his room to finalise their plans, he was already pacing the room and wishing he’d never heard of Faerie, or of its multifarious and frequently obnoxious inhabitants.

“Where’s Pan?” asked Janick, poking his head into the bathroom and receiving a bad tempered grumble from the troll.

“Probably fucking,” grumbled Bruce, twitching the curtain aside to glare at the darkness outside.

“For shame,” whispered a deep voice in his ear, “such base accusations--”

That voice dissolved into laughter when Bruce yelped and jumped away from the curtain, stepping back to swat Pan on the arm. The forest God grinned, leaned against the wall and folded his arms; he was back in his usual form, his eyes returned to their usual slotted goatishness, and he winked at Bruce with a wicked leer. “Although, given some free time there is much flesh to be explored here. So many willing--”

“Christ,” groaned Steve, and pinched the bridge of his nose with tired sigh. “Pack it in. We’ve got serious business here, and if we get it wrong we’re gonna end up dead, right? So pay attention. Fuck’s sake.”

Strangely, of them all it was Nicko who appeared least concerned; now that they were actually here and not just planning, he was sure that everything would go well and that they would be victorious. His enormous confidence went a long way toward bolstering the mood of his comrades, which had begun to wilt a little at the thought of the task ahead. Somehow, between Nicko’s bright optimism and Pan’s sly amusement they retired to bed in a far more positive mood than when they had arrived; they were the forces of light, and who would dare stand in their way?

~*~

To watch the show you would never have realised that there was anything wrong. The band were their usual focused, professional selves, their performance as polished and powerful as ever.

As soon as the last encore was done, though, the facade dropped away and the fear began to creep back.

“This is not a good idea,” muttered H as they boarded the Land Rovers.

“Yes it is, shut up. We’ll be fine,” replied Janick, the underlying strain clear in his voice from the sudden thickness of his accent.

“Guns,” grumbled Steve, pulling back the corner of a tarp in the back of one of the vehicles, “I hate guns.”

“But they are sometimes necessary,” soothed Pan’s voice from behind the wheel.

“Gotta fight fire with fire, old boy,” chuckled Nicko, and with a swift clap on his shoulder they took off across the desert, on a mission to rescue an impossible creature from a fortress so secure that they could only hope that their complacency would be their undoing.

~*~

The Sheikh sat quietly in a room filled with beauty, but his eyes saw none of it. His entire life he had been surrounded by riches, opulence beyond the power of most to even imagine; and yet he still felt the harsh bite of the desert in his bones, a lust for more, brighter, richer than ever before. And for those that might try to deny him what he wished he felt no mercy, and there would be no pity for them when he found them.

A soft knock at the door heralded the approach of another, and his eyes focused on the bowed head of his most trusted aide.

“They come, your Highness,” said Zachariah, and the thin lips twitched into a small smile.

“Let them,” was the reply, and the other man padded away to set the wheels of destruction in motion.

~*~

“Where did all this gear come from, anyway?” asked Steve, becoming more uneasy with every passing mile. Stephanas smiled up at him, the child’s features alive with excitement.

“Pan got them! He spoke to some men--”

“Do not be giving away my secrets, child,” chuckled the voice of the forest God from in front of them. 

Small clouds of sand began to peak around them as they drove, and Steve squinted out the side of the vehicle. Pan drove one of the Land Rovers, and Bruce the other; Gem had vanished shortly before their set had begun, and if he looked really hard Steve was sure he could make out her blocky form flashing in and out of sight amidst the dust devils that seemed to be pacing them.

“She rides with her cousins, as do the goblins,” said Pan, eyes never leaving the narrow strip of desert road. “I do not know how he achieved it, as the sand demons are notoriously standoffish and separatist, but they are assisting our venture with more wholeheartedness than I believed they knew.”

“Sand demons,” grumbled Steve, “I’m still not happy about that, you know.”

“Gotta use whatever means necessary,” said Nicko, using one shoulder to nudge Steve out of the way, “and with them on our side, how can we lose?”

Steve settled back into his seat with a sigh, and hoped that Nicko was right.

~*~

It stank in here, and Zachariah had to take a moment to control his expression. He loathed sorcery, saw it as an affront to everything they and their religion stood for - but it was useful, and the men of the desert had long learned that to ignore something’s use just because it went against the tenets of Allah was... foolish.

And so the sorceror was tolerated, protected - and used.

The filth of his spellwork spread in a slime of blood and twist of offal across the flagged floor; fat candles burned with a greasy smoke from their low flames that danced at the corners of the vision, suggested images that might drive a man mad if he paid them attention. Zachariah’s mind was stronger than that, though, so he focused instead on the skinny old man that writhed in the centre of the crude circle amidst the blood.

“Sorceror,” he growled, and the man flinched.

“They come,” he babbled, eyes rolling like those of a sheep that smells its own death on the knife of the priest, “as I said. They come to save the silver flame and loose our souls to the underworld with their magic--”

“They are just men,” replied the Sheikh’s aide, and curled his lip in disgust at the bones and shreds of flesh that surrounded him. “And like men, they will die.”

~*~

When they arrived at the gates of the stables all was quiet. The sand demons had vanished, and there was no activity to be seen around the impressive - and very firmly shut - wooden gates. Pan clenched his fingers on the steering wheel and leaned forward; Steve could see Bruce doing the same thing in the other vehicle.

“Any second now,” murmured Nicko, and Stephanas laughed.

Whistle of wind, that was what it sounded like. A thin, high sound underlaid by the savage hiss and grind of moving sand, the wind-noise growing ever louder until it was a shriek that had them covering their ears - and then stopped.

For the first time they got a good look at their allies, the trolls that had been exiled from Faerie and decided never to return, even once the door was open. How many of them there were was unclear; the moonlight and the shift of their strange bodies blurred their outlines until you could hardly tell where the desert began and the troll ended, or vice versa.

Tall, easily as tall as Gem - who stood calmly in the centre of them, amethyst eyes alight with anticipation for the coming battle - their forms draped with what was either cloth that matched in colour and texture their surroundings, or mantles of gritty skin that flowed and moved at their sides, and hid their lower bodies from view in a constant flow of motion. Skin, Steve decided when one of them lifted an arm to gesture at the closed gate, because he could see veins and tendons arranged through it from the reflected glow of the other vehicle’s headlights. Spikes and tendrils of that same gritty-looking skin arched from the top of their skulls, all the forms serving to blur the outline and making the creature hard to see, even from close quarters, and therefore that much more dangerous. Because if you looked into the shielded yellow gleam of the small eyes, you would have no doubt at all that this creature was a predator, and a deadly one.

Its voice was a sibilant hiss, and teeth like knives of stone glimmered briefly as it spoke; Gem replied in her darker rumble, and the creature spread its claws to gesture once again at the compound. Nicko stuck his head out of the window.

“Don’t kill any ‘orses, right? And definitely don’t hurt the unicorn!”

Stephanas snickered, and Gem spoke rapidly to the sand demon that was now, if the tilt of its head was anything to go by, thoroughly confused. It bowed to the vehicle, raised both arms - causing Steve to swallow hard when he spied just how large and savage the hooks of its claws were - and cried out in a voice that split the night and set the horses inside to calling a reply. Gem roared, an avalanche of sound that split the shattered darkness asunder, and before any of the humans could do more than cover their ears she was moving, her huge form charging toward the gates. The sand demons followed her, and the crash as they hit the entranceway - reducing it to rubble and dust - shook the desert floor and made the vehicles bounce on their axles.

“That will probably have been heard,” said Pan with a grin, “so I think we’d better go, don’t you?”

~*~

Sheikh Al-Thani was rather enjoying himself. It had been a long time since he’d taken a moonlit drive through the desert, and the joy of piloting the big Landcruiser through the dunes sang through his veins.

Zachariah, as usual, was rather more controlled.

“Would it not be better,” he grumbled to his master, although they had spoken of this many times before, and he knew that he would lose the argument once again, “to simply shoot them, and dump their bodies in the desert? Blame the Al-Qaeda, make sorrowful noises, but add that their music is an offence to all rightful sons of Allah?”

“And rouse the passion of the apathetic youth of the West?” replied the Sheikh, brief glimmer of teeth. “Nonsense. They will vanish as though the sands themselves had consumed them, and it will be an abiding mystery.”

“Nevertheless--”

“With no bodies they will not be dead. And the West loves a mystery, does it not?”

“But--”

“Enough, Zachariah! Have they arrived?”

The smaller man spoke urgently into a radio, waited for an answer, then snapped out a short command before he turned to his master with a thin-lipped nod of satisfaction. “They have just made it through the gates, Excellency.”

The Sheikh slewed the vehicle to a halt just below the crest of a dune, and jumped out onto the rapidly cooling sand. He dropped to his knees, and all but vanished against the shift of sand and moonlight; shielded by the bulk of the dune the two men watched the attack on the stables, and saw the attackers halt, confused by the lack of reaction to their presence.

“And now you realise you are discovered,” murmured the Sheikh under his breath, and tilted a finger to his aide.

Zachariah pressed the call button on the radio once, twice, and a third time; light exploded far below them, and the six men - plus various abominations, noted Zachariah with a grimace - were suddenly thrown into stark contrasts against the rich green of the paddocks. They flinched, the motion clear even from up here, and the blur that had rolled in from the desert itself moved to shield them; men poured from the outbuildings near the stables, gunfire erupted, and the spectres began to dissolve as counter-spells were thrown to disrupt their very being.

Screams of anger from the stallions, the frightened calls of the mares and youngstock and the hideous shrieks of the broken and dying sand demons shook the air around them. The Sheikh grunted in satisfaction, and noted that the men were fleeing in exactly the direction that he wished them to.

“And now we join our forces,” he murmured. “Remember, Zachariah, you jackal; they are not to be killed by our personnel. Rather, we are to allow the entity to deal with them--”

His bow was low, but this time not from respect. No, this time it was to hide the anger in his eyes; to use sorcery to fight sorcery was one thing, but when it was mere men that were to be defeated? Then they did not need it, and guns would be enough.

He followed the Sheikh back to the car, the sound of his grinding teeth hidden by the cacophony from below. After all, this was a battle; and if a few bullets went astray from their intended target, then who could be to blame? Not he, for he would follow his master to the very end - even if he sometimes had to get a little... creative... in interpreting his commands.

~*~

Steve skidded around the corner of the nearest building, eyes wide in panic and calling for his son. Janick fled in next, followed by the rest in quick succession; they were seeing their allies cut to pieces, and only the swiftness of Pan, Gem and the goblins had kept them alive so far. Stephanas was there, his bare feet quicksilver on the sand, and he spared the rest of them a brief nod before he grabbed his father’s hand and squeezed it, hard.

“Where’s the unicorn?” Steve yelled at Nicko. The big man pulled up, and shot a finger across the paddocks to a long, low set building.

“There! We got to get across there!”

Bruce, sweat dripping from his face and white with shock at how fast the whole situation had gone astray, shook his head. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding,” he panted, “they’ll shoot us for sure. We have to go round the back.”

“Bruce!”

He grabbed Nicko’s arm. “Nick, there’s got to be a way through from here. We’ll get him, don’t worry.”

Adrian yanked at the door he’d been leaning against, and yelped with shock to find it open. “Bruce! There’s a way in!”

“I’m sure that you can get to that barn from this one,” said Bruce to Nicko, getting him back into the shadows with a hard pull on his sleeve, “we have to try it, or we’re all going to die.”

The look he turned on Bruce was mournful. “Then let’s go,” he grumbled, “before they kill him too.”

~*~

Emergency lighting cast eerie green shadows along the corridors, and the frightened group straggled along in what they hoped was the right direction. They came to several doors, managed to nip across dark alleys without being seen by the men that ran and shouted along the more brightly-lit parades in front of the buildings. The chaos was complete, horses screaming and human voices mixed with the screeching fury of the sand demons, mission forgotten now and set loose to wreak as much havoc as they could on the men that hurt them so.

Gem kept her blocky body - chipped and maimed in too many places to count by bullets - between them and the guns of the soldiers, but she was slowing by the minute. Pan’s long face appeared from the gloom, and he beckoned them through a door that also lay unlocked.

“There is much magic here,” he whispered, powerful body curled against the pain of the wounds he had received, “so we must tread with caution.”

Noise, shouts and screams from behind them, a triumphant bellow of discovery; they pushed forward in a panic, six men and their non human allies herded like sheep into the larger space that breathed in the darkness before them. Only Stephanas and Davey had the presence of mind to turn and bar the way behind them, the boy as steady under fire as any veteran and Dave beset by memories of the last battle for Faerie.

Trapped, they huddled together in the gloom.

“Somebody’s here,” said Nicko, and coughed dust from his throat.

A flicker, a glimmer of light, and they stared in sheer horror at the massive bulk of the creature before them.

“Oh, fuck,” breathed Steve.

A long red-scaled neck unfurled, and the beast rose to stand and glare at them with eyes that burned yellow with hate; chains rattled, and the steely spikes on the muscular neck and shoulders echoed the sound when the creature shook itself and took the first step toward them.

It was a dragon.

_~tbc~_


	11. Wrathchild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They huddled under the gaze of the dragon, which narrowed its eyes at them and began to whoosh in a huge breath. They had no doubt at all that as soon as it had done breathing in it was going to breathe out, and that would be them crispy fried--

****

  
_~ Chapter Ten ~_

_Wrathchild_   


They huddled under the gaze of the dragon, which narrowed its eyes at them and began to whoosh in a huge breath. They had no doubt at all that as soon as it had done breathing in it was going to breathe _out_ , and that would be them crispy fried--

“No,” said Nicko under his breath. “No, no, no! We are _not_ going to die like this! I am _not_ having it, do you hear me?”

And to everyone’s horrified astonishment, he pushed his way to the front of the group, planted his hands on his hips and glared up at the dragon.

“Here! You! You listening to me, you dirty great beastie?”

“Nicko!” hissed Bruce through his teeth. “Shut! Up!”

Bad enough that the dragon was going to kill them, but did he have to make it angry first?

“You see who we have here?” boomed Nicko, and the dragon paused, then sank down to the sand, cocked an ear at him as though paying attention, “see? Not only do we have the Prophet - who as you know saved the whole of Faerie from itself - but we also have the God Pan! You can’t toast _them_ now, can you? It wouldn’t be polite, no. And we have a mission, don’t we? We have to get a unicorn out which might just, as you no doubt know, be the last of his kind and anyway, aren’t you supposed to be on his side?”

The dragon blinked, then licked its lips.

“Whose side?” it asked slowly.

Bruce, who had been about to try and tackle Nicko to the ground in order to just shut him up, froze. As did everyone else.

“You know, the bloody Sheikh that’s got the unicorn locked up. Cos I reckon he’s definitely got to be linked to all the no-good stuff that’s happening over in Faerie so, like I said, I thought you were on his side and if that’s so what are you doing here all shackled to the floor and stuff? I can see them chains around your middle and if you really were on his side you wouldn’t be chained up, would you, so I figured if you are chained up - which you are - then even though you’re on his side you might be persuaded to help us, see? Cos not even a dragon is going to be too fond of someone who chains it up, that’s what I reckon anyway.”

The dragon cocked its head.

“Do you always talk this much?” it asked.

“Yep,” grinned Nicko, “sometimes more.”

“Good lord,” said the dragon in a mild tone, and shook its head. 

“You can _talk?_ ” croaked Bruce, and the dragon shot Nicko a sideways glance.

“Has Lord Bruce received a bang on the head recently?” it asked sweetly, “or is he often in the habit of ignoring the evidence of his own ears?”

Steve elbowed his way to the front, Stephanas shoved behind him to shield him from the dragon’s gaze. “He’s just a bit shocked,” he said with a scowl. “We all are, so there’s no need to be a bitch about it.”

For not only did the dragon have a voice - and a rather pleasant one, too, well spoken and easy to understand - but that voice was undeniably female. Deep, yes, and the tone was anything but friendly... but definitely female.

She stared at Steve for a second and then snorted, the sand under their feet stirred up into a small cloud before settling again.

“The Prophet. Well, I see you are as acerbic and blunt as you have always been described; I am assuming that the individual who talks so much is Nicko Unicorn-Friend, and I also see Lords Janick, Adrian, Davey of the Magic, Pan, an immature godling who smells rather like you, Prophet, a high ranking Troll and far too many goblins lurking in the shadows. Call them off, Lord Bruce, _now_ , or they will die. My eyesight may not be what it once was, but it is good enough to end their miserable existences if they continue to attempt to sneak up on me.”

“Bob,” called Bruce, and with a certain amount of sighing and clanking the goblins made their way to Bruce’s side. They ringed themselves around him and waved their weapons at the dragon, although Bruce did wonder just how useful allies three feet high would be against a creature that stood a good seven feet high at the shoulder. Gem was big, but the dragon was _massive_. 

“So you gonna help us or what?” asked Steve, who folded his arms and tipped his chin up to glare at the dragon.

“Why should I?” she snapped in return. “My people are engaged in a war against your own - both sets, Prophet! - and are we not the ultimate, legendary enemies of the unicorns you claim to be trying to free? Tell me, Prophet--” and she placed her nose so close to Steve’s face that his hair was pushed back by the cool whiff of her breath, heavy with the stench of petrol and sulphur, old blood and ashes, “why I should not just do what this arrogant Sheikh wants me to do, and burn you all to white ash right here?”

They glared at each other until Nicko forced his way between them, edging Steve behind him with his shoulder and pushing her nose down and away until he was facing one great, baleful eye.

“Because that damn Sheikh is our enemy too, right luv? And the way you talk about him he’s not really your friend, is he? No he ain’t. So the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that guff. See? We can always cut each other to ribbons later, anyway, once we’re all out of here safe and sound. So what say we get you out of those chains and you can clear the way for us to grab the unicorn?”

The dragon blinked, and sat back on her haunches with some effort. Bruce narrowed his eyes and nudged Janick, who was standing a little behind him.

“She seems awfully stiff,” he murmured, “don’t you think, from the way she moves? And I’m sure I heard her creak.”

“I dunno,” Janick whispered back, “I’ve still got me eyes shut.”

“I think she’s old,” mused Bruce, half to himself, then tuned back in to what Nicko was saying now.

“Of course we’ll get you out of the chains,” he was saying brightly, apparently in response to the dragon’s rather sceptical comment regarding his sincerity in wishing to free her. “Gem, you can do it, right?”

The troll hesitated, glanced at Bruce; he nodded, and she bowed to the dragon in graceful accord.

“Get to it then gel!”

Bruce nodded again to back up Nicko’s request, and Gem shambled off into the darkness to attend to the reams of heavy chains that bound the dragon’s wings to her sides, and then to the floor. She could sit up and move her neck, but no more; masses of discarded chain on the floor indicated that until they arrived her head and neck had been secured to the ground too.

“Perhaps,” growled the dragon, and her tone - although gruff - was less contentious than it had been, “humans are not the treacherous, deceiving apes that I had been led to believe.”

“That’s kind of like assuming all dragons are murderous animals,” Bruce piped up, then wished he’d kept his mouth shut when the dragon turned to give him a long, slow glare. There was intelligence in that gaze, and humour - but also rage, and he hoped that she could keep her ire under control until they were out of her range.

“But we are, Lord Bruce,” she growled, “we are.”

And with that the last of the chains clinked free, and she rose to all fours. She stretched her wings as far as she could in the space of the high-ceilinged barn, arched her back and shook all her scales with a crash that shook the walls; each wing was rotated, each leg stretched and talons flexed to slice long gouges in the soft sand of the floor, and she flung her head back to roar at the top of her lungs until rust flakes fell from the rafters to pepper the watchers with red dust.

“Very impressive,” said Nicko with a grin, and then stepped forward to pat her on the shoulder. “Now, I’m assuming you have a name? You know ours, so it would really handy to know what we should call you. Apart from ‘oi you great big dragon’, of course, which fits but takes ages to say.”

The dragon blinked at him again, and the watchers got the definite impression that she was having to constantly rearrange her mental patterns to keep up with an entity like Nicko.

“My name is--” and she launched into a series of syllabic hisses and growls that no human tongue could follow, and when she was done she cocked an eyebrow at Nicko, who of course never missed a beat.

“Righto, can’t pronounce that but I reckon Jenny is close enough.”

Pan smothered a snicker with a cough, and the dragon bared her teeth at him.

“You find that amusing, goatboy?”

“Not at all, my lady,” he said, and swept low in an outrageously overblown bow. The dragon rolled her eyes at him, and turned her attention back to Nicko. He took the tilt of her head as a request for instruction, and with a grin clapped her on the scaly shoulder and improvised like mad.

“So you bust out of here, chase all the people away - and try not to kill any horses, if you wouldn’t mind - and we’ll go grab the unicorn and then we’ll meet up in the dunes by the road a mile or so out, that sound like a good plan to you?”

“It is _a_ plan, and that is all I shall say about it,” she snorted. “Stand back,” she added, “this could get a little noisy. Oh, and Prophet?”

“Yeah?” said Steve, and turned to eye her over his shoulder. She winked at him, and her thin lips contorted in what could be nothing else but a wry, draconian smile.

“Good luck,” she said, and with that breathed out a roar of flame that carried the entire end wall with it into total destruction.

~*~

As far as the Sheikh’s men had been led to believe, the intruders would be herded into the barn where the second captive was kept chained up away from the sight of anyone _not_ in his employ and that, as they say, would be that. And so, once they heard the first bellow from the building they had relaxed and, in the manner of fighting men everywhere and of every time and nationality, they stood down and used the time to chat and smoke. Grooms bustled around the place trying to soothe their equine charges - all very upset by the fuss and gunfire in their peaceful abode - and roundly cursed any uniformed muscle that got in their way.

The sand demons had been driven away by a combination of muscle and magic, the intruders had been dealt with, and very shortly their commander would emerge to send them all back to their barracks to complete their interrupted night’s sleep.

So when the end of the building exploded, they were completely unprepared for the destruction that emerged on furious wings, bringing death by fire and talon and tooth.

They died by the drove, and the dragon was not displeased.

~*~

“Your rescuers are dead,” said the Sheikh to the unicorn, his voice soft in the half darkness.

Hooves shuffled inside the high-security section of the captive’s barn, and a glint of dark eye showed him that his prisoner was not as unaware as he pretended.

“They thought that they could save you,” he continued, and now his voice was a satisfied croon, “but they underestimated me. That is a very dangerous thing to do, as you are beginning to discover, are you not?”

The gleam of the soft half-light on a silvery hide, the whisper of muscles under the silken skin and the unicorn stood before him, its head held at just the right height to pierce his tormentor’s heart - had he not been behind thick bars and a lethal electric fence. The Sheikh smiled, lit a cigarette, and blew the smoke toward the animal that stood there, quivering with frustration and anger.

“To underestimate me is to fail, dear beast. You have failed, they have failed, and I shall have dominion over you for the rest of your days. Bow before me, beast, and we shall create between us the most beautiful horses ever to grace the desert--”

The shriek of the dragon destroying the barn - swift followed by the sound of her wings and the dying squeals of her victims - brought the Sheikh up short, and he spun on his heel to check on Zachariah, who now frowned and chattered into his radio, giving it a shake when it unexpectedly fell silent.

“She is free,” was all he had time to say, and then the roof began to shake as huge claws punched clear through the corrugated iron.

 _You will also discover,_ said a voice in the mind of the shocked ruler, _that to underestimate the friends of my people is a very great mistake._

“You talk?”

 _For longer than you,_ was the snorted response, and then the entire world began to fall apart.

~*~

Steve shook himself free of the debris that had trapped him - briefly - against the partition wall of the barn. Stephanas, he noticed, was helping the goblins extricate Janick and Adrian from a tangle of roof beams; Davey and Pan were already free, crouched behind a block of fallen masonry to watch the progress of the dragon across the compound. Bruce and Gem had hold of an agitated Nicko, who was torn between racing off to find the unicorn, getting the horses out, and fretting about his friends.

“Bloody mess out there, innit?” said Janick, joining Steve where he watched the unfolding scene with a dull sense of futility. 

“I thought I was done with all this,” he said quietly. “I thought that’s what the last war over there was all about. I thought it would stop all the fighting. But look out there, Jan - look at it!”

Janick looked at the destroyed buildings, the charred and torn corpses of the men that wanted them dead scattered far and wide, then shot a sideways glance at Bruce for help. He, however, was still too busy trying to stop Nicko from just charging out into the very centre of the dragon’s vengeful sweeps of destruction to notice the mute appeal. Stephanas, on the other hand, did realise that something was wrong and ran lightly through the rubble to tug at his father’s hand. Steve looked down at him, weary to the bone, and from somewhere deep inside summoned up a small smile for the boy.

“Are we going to get the unicorn now?” he asked, his high voice bizarrely normal, unworried in the middle of all the confusion.

Steve chuckled, his son’s words somehow cutting through the gloom that had descended when he first laid eyes on all the devastation. He shook himself, and Janick breathed a sigh of relief to see the spark back in his friend’s eye when he looked up.

“Yep. Bruce! Let ‘im go. Davey! Hope you’ve got a plan because we’ve got a unicorn to release. Come on, we gotta hurry before that plane goes without us!”

Steve at the front, Nicko but a hair’s breadth behind him the little procession began to pick its way across the rubble, Pan, Gem and the goblins ranging out to the sides to provide protection. Bruce looked at Janick before he headed out to follow the others, but let what he was going to say go with no more than a sigh when the other man just winked. H passed him too, and gave him a friendly thump on the arm as he went.

“Come on Bruce. You want to live forever?”

“Yes, actually,” he grumbled, “I do. But the chances of it happening around you lot is just about nil!” 

But he fell in behind the rest anyway; after all, what else could he do?

~*~

The dragon was on the ground when they reached her, tearing at the mess of steel bars that had once held a unicorn and screaming in frustration. Nicko - dodging the sweeps of her great tail - ran up alongside her, thumped her on the shoulder and jumped back when she turned on him.

“Whoa, steady on girl! I was just wondering if you’d seen--”

If it hadn’t been for Pan’s jump and tackle he would have been incinerated where he stood. The dragon’s eyes were still full of rage, and she had reacted before thinking; a long patch of smoking earth remained where Nicko had been standing but a moment earlier, and she snarled at having missed her target.

Before anyone could think to yell, however, there came a ringing cry from the other side of the wrecked barn, and a thunder of hooves. Through the twisted mess that had been his prison came the unicorn, dark eyes alight with furious anger and nostrils flared scarlet with the stink of the old enemy. He placed himself between the little group of humans and the angry dragon, reared up on his hind legs and screamed a challenge at her, brandishing his wicked single horn in violent promise.

The dragon took a pace back, narrowed her eyes with a hiss, and opened her wings; the pair seemed set to join in battle until a very familiar voice came from behind a tangle of wreckage, and an even more familiar figure forced its way forward into the very centre of the brewing conflagration.

“Stop! ‘Kin ‘ell, what’s all this then, eh? I dunno, we set you free and you not only rip the place up you try and cook me bleedin’ goose for me! And you,” he roared, turning to face the unicorn who had fallen back a pace at Nicko’s furious tone, “don’t you know that if it weren’t for this bloody great lizard we... wouldn’t... be....”

His voice trailed away to nothing as he stared at the unicorn, which was likewise regarding him with an expression that fell little short of astonishment. He shook his mane, took a pace forward and touched his muzzle to Nicko’s forehead, inhaling the smell of the man before looking him straight in the eye.

 _My mother said that we would meet again one day,_ he said into the minds of all present, and Nicko sucked in a deep breath in shock.

“Well bugger me,” he said quietly, “Wren? That you, lad?”

 _At your service,_ he replied to Nicko alone, and bowed his great head to return the sudden embrace bestowed upon him by his oldest - and first - friend.

~*~

The dragon was examining her talons and ignoring the whirling pattern of crying, laughing humans when a small noise from the wreckage behind her drew her closer to investigate. When she saw what had made the noise a nasty grin crept across her face, and she cleared her throat several times until she caught the attention of the thoroughly distracted humans.

“I apologise for breaking up your reunion,” she said, “but I feel I may have something here you want to speak to.”

“What?” asked Steve, and scrambled a little closer to her to take a look. She swept a piece of debris away, and used two talons to delicately lift Zachariah from his hiding place, then drop him none too gently where everyone could see him.

“Filth,” he spat at them, “scum!”

“Now that’s not very nice, is it?” said Nicko from where he leaned against the unicorn, one arm flung across his back, “callin’ us names.”

Bruce was a little more direct.

“Where’s Al-Thani? I think these two,” and he indicated dragon and unicorn with a wave of his hands, “probably want a word with him.”

The dragon growled, bared her teeth and allowed a string of hot saliva to drip from the dreadful teeth to splash and steam in the dust; the unicorn snarled a rumble deep in his chest and pawed the ground, scraped at the gritty debris in challenge. Zachariah spat at them, his face twisted into an angry sneer.

“Animals, my master is away from here, thank Allah, and you will all pay for your obscenities in blood--”

“Gem,” murmured Bruce, and the troll shouldered her way through and picked the man up by the scruff of his neck, placing one huge stone hand around his throat. Bruce interrupted her with a delicate cough. “Ah, I think we would all rather you didn’t kill him,” he said, although the snort from dragon, unicorn, Pan and goblins indicated otherwise.

She shrugged, and flipped the man effortlessly between her hands until she held him by both wrists. Bruce was impressed; the Sheikh’s aide was a fit, strong man and here he was being thrown around by his bodyguard like a sack of spuds. He wondered just how strong Gem was, and then hoped that he never actually had reason to find out.

Zachariah found himself placed gently on the floor, and her hands opened just enough that she could engulf his clenched fists within her own, rather larger, stone ones; and then to the horror of the humans and the glee of their companions, she began to squeeze.

First the angry tirade against them stopped. Then the man began to grind his teeth.

Small crackles and crunches were beginning to come from Gem’s hands, and still she squeezed.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” said Davey, and turned away from the spectacle. Janick and Adrian joined him, but the others remained to watch.

Now blood had begun to run from between Gem’s fingers, and Zachariah’s breath had become small whimpers of agony. Tighter yet, and he began to wail; the sound was thin, and he flung his head back to keen his agony up toward to the smoke-stained sky. She didn’t stop, didn’t let up the pressure until with a final jerk she twisted her hands sideways, and destroyed his wrist joints with a sickening crunch of bone.

Bloodied fingers opened and he slumped to the ground in a heap. Bruce sighed, and cocked his head at Steve.

“Time to go, I think,” he said.

~*~

Bruce, accompanied by only one of his personal security detail, looked fresh and relaxed by the time he strolled into the airport lounge. Dave, co-ordinator for this particular flight and long-term member of the Maiden road crew, had chewed his fingernails to nothing and was considering climbing the walls next.

“Where the hell have you been?” he yelped, long face twisted into a scowl. Bruce smiled.

“Taking care of business. All loaded?”

“Yeah, but--”

“Don’t worry about the others,” he continued blithely, “you know they caught a slightly earlier flight, don’t you?”

Pan had assured him that he would be able to change the memories of anyone connected with the travel arrangements; they would remember that the whole band had made it out on an earlier scheduled flight, and not that they had apparently vanished from the face of the planet.

Dave’s eyes clouded for a second, then he nodded vigorously. “Sure, but where’s your other--”

“Oh, he went back with them. So we’re ready?”

“We’ve been ready for hours!” he bellowed in reply, sallow face colouring up. “It’s been you holding us up, as per bloody usual!” 

Bruce grinned, and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Shall we go then?” he said, and strolled through the door toward the aircraft. Dave stared at him for a second, blinked, then with a tremendous sigh followed him.

There had, he thought irritably, to be an easier way of making a living.

_~tbc~_


	12. No More Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well, that went better than it could have done," Nicko boomed cheerfully. "Now, what say we go and have a spot of breakfast?"

****

  
_~ Chapter Eleven ~_

_No More Lies_   


From his kitchen window Steve could look out across a view very, very few people in either his world or Faerie could ever have claimed to see. Through the dimness of the night he could see Nicko stood under one of the rain-wet willow trees at the far side of the lawn, talking to the unicorn; on the other side, a very large dragon had curled herself tightly under the canopy of the barn that they used for a garage, the double doors rolled back so that she could sit inside out of the wet.

They had all decided to wait until Bruce returned safely - _if_ he returned safely - to discuss the situation, or to make any plans for the future. Pan had assumed a station where he could keep an eye on the dragon; Nicko had remained outside with the unicorn, who claimed he was enjoying the rain and muck of an English winter. He had, he’d added, been captive so long that freedom could sweeten even the foulest weather.

Stephanas had been sent to bed after a nice hot bath, and the rest of his band were mostly concerned with calling wives and families to reassure them that everything was fine, there had been no problems and they would be home soon.

Steve chewed on his lip, and hoped that they were right.

~*~

The dragon blinked at him when he hurried into the barn, shaking rain from his hair and muttering about the cold.

“Prophet,” she murmured, and shuffled a little to one side so that he could make himself comfortable on a bench that had been left in the garage out of the bad weather. He nodded his thanks, and the two sat in silence for a while and watched it rain through the darkness.

“Do you mind being called Jenny?” he asked after a while, and the dragon blew out a long, slow breath.

“It matters little what humans call me,” she said, and she sounded tired.

“Hmm,” he replied, then turned to get a better look at her in the light from the lamp on the wall above him. The ridges and elongated scales and spines along the arch of her back were a deeper brownish red than her flanks, almost a bronze colour; the rounded armour scales along her sides were more of a red that flared into scarlet along her midline, then faded to an orange that became yellow for her belly scales. Under her chin they faded still further to white, and the scales of her muzzle were a faded red that in the lamplight looked to be almost pinky-grey with age. It occurred to him that she not only looked tired, she looked... old. Weary and somehow broken, and resigned to whatever her fate may be. She shifted a little under his gaze, and angled her great head to look at him down the length of her nose.

“You have something on your mind?” she asked. “Because I doubt you came out here just to be sociable. I am, after all, a monster--”

His snort was loud, and echoed from the white plaster of the walls. “Bullshit,” he said. “I’ve seen monsters, and you ain’t one of ‘em. You are what you are, that’s all. Just like me.”

She thought about this for a moment, then twitched her huge shoulders in what could have been a shrug. “Perhaps,” she said.

With that they both fell silent again, only this time it was more the comforting quiet of two old friends, keeping each other company against the darkness.

~*~

Bruce couldn’t relax until they were well into international airspace, and his crew - recognising that it would be unwise to disturb him - left him alone until he checked their progress on the chart, sat back in his seat and blew out a long, relieved breath.

“Tough day?” asked his co-pilot, and he rolled his head to the side to look at him. The other man recoiled; he’d flown with Bruce many times and seen him in many moods, happy, annoyed, uptight, exhausted, but never had he seen the sort of depth in those familiar brown eyes that made him feel so uncomfortable. He’d always wondered what it was about the other man that made so many people want to follow him - and, of course, the band - all over the planet, and he suspected that he’d just had a glimpse.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said with a faint smile, and went back to staring out of the forward window of the Boeing.

Bob, from his perch above the instruments with his arms wrapped around his knees, dropped Bruce a wink of agreement, then went back to watching the sky scroll past as they made their long way home.

~*~

“Dad! DAD!”

Hammering on his door roused Steve from a restless - and all too short - slumber. He rolled to his back, blinked at the ceiling, and wondered what the emergency was now. It was Callie’s voice demanding attention this time, and her tone was high and panicked; he could guess what the yelling was about, although he had no idea what any of his otherworldly visitors had done to provoke such an extreme reaction in his offspring. As they’d arrived back in the middle of the night, unceremoniously dumped in the middle of the wet lawn by the magic of dragon and unicorn, guided by a wounded and angry Pan, he hadn’t thought to wake his brood and warn them what they would see when they awoke. This might, he thought sourly to himself, have been something of a mistake. 

He suspected that none of his ancestors - even the ones thoroughly wrapped up in the mysterious world of Faerie - had been blessed with situations like this, and took a moment to curse them soundly before he levered himself upright. He blinked sand from his eyes, and shook himself.

“Alright Cal, I’m awake! I’ll be there in a minute.”

“But dad--!”

“In a minute! Go put some coffee on, there’s a good girl.”

“But there’s a unicorn on the lawn and a dragon in the garage and dad, Daniel’s gone out there to see it and Lauren’s doing her nut!”

That did it. The thought of his youngest son out there with a dragon that he didn’t entirely trust got him moving faster than he would have thought possible considering how little sleep he’d had. Pausing only to yank on a pair of jeans and a shirt he dashed out to join his daughter, and they tore down the stairs together.

~*~

Stephanas was being all but sat on by Lauren, who had wisely decided that to allow the godling to attack the dragon with nothing more than a small spear would probably make it angry rather than actually help the situation in any way. He was insistent that he must go and protect his brother, and between the squeaks of joy over the unicorn (who was lurking behind the rosebushes, apparently rather shy about all the attention) and the fear over their youngest sibling the noise in the kitchen was close to pain level.

“ENOUGH!” roared Steve, and silence fell for a brief moment before they all started shouting again - but this time at _him_.

He put his head in his hands and sighed. What he needed now was a miracle--

“Now now, what’s all this racket then? Can an old man not get any sleep around here?”

\--or Nicko.

“Uncle Nicko!”

“And what are we, chopped liver?” asked Dave’s voice with a laugh, and Steve found himself facing only Lauren and Stephanas, the rest of his brood occupied with jumping all over the rest of their uncles.

“The dragon, father!” said Stephanas, and waved his spear. Steve grabbed the end of it and frowned.

“You’ll have someone’s eye out with that, so put it down. I’ll go and talk to the dragon, so you,” he nodded at Lauren, “put some coffee on and we’ll have this sorted out in a jiff, OK?”

Despite the fear in her eyes for her youngest brother she gave her father a short nod, and then turned to impose some order on the noisy chaos that filled the kitchen. Steve shook his head, then quietly slipped out of the back door to make his way to the barn - and the dragon.

~*~

Trusting that Nicko would be able to distract the crowd indoors for long enough to allow him to get this sorted, Steve made the quick trip across the courtyard to the barn. He didn't try to creep, or disguise his movements; he figured that startling the dragon could be a worse mistake than underestimating her. And if all his experience had taught him anything, it was that underestimating any of the supernatural creatures he shared his world with was a very, very stupid thing to do indeed.

The scene that met his eyes had him leaning on the corner of the stone barn, a wry smile for the antics of his youngest son. He was standing - all unafraid - right next to the dragon's head; she was resting her chin on the ground but had her head tilted so that her eye was level with Daniel's. He was staring into the enormous yellow orb with fascination, talking to her and petting the softer skin around her eyes with fascination.

"So what do you eat?" he asked, and now he was stroking her under the jawline. She angled her head slightly to let him get a better reach, his small fingers finding itchy spots between the scales that she couldn’t scratch for herself.

"Anything I can," she replied after a brief hesitation, "anything I can catch."

He paused in his scratching. "Even me?" he said, and there was the beginning of a quiver in his voice. Steve straightened up.

She knew he was there. A quick glance up at the watching man, and he saw the corner of her mouth quirk in a rueful smile before she looked back down at his son. "Not you, little one. Your father would be... angry with me, I suspect. And besides, I like you."

"Oh," he said, "cool."

Steve decided enough was enough, and moved to join his son. Jenny lifted her head enough to look him straight in the eye, and winked.

"They're all in a right tizzy indoors, Dan. You should have asked me before you came out here. You know what you’re supposed to do if there’s anything unusual hanging around."

This was true. Steve - and Lorelei, when she’d been with them - had been very careful to instruct their offspring that they were never, ever to just wander off with anything or anyone, and never mind how pretty or interesting they were or how clever the promises made. Most parents just had to worry about strangers with sweets; the concerns of the Harris household were somewhat more exotic.

"But dad, she's a dragon!"

"And what if she'd been dangerous?"

The dragon in question rumbled a chuckle in her chest, swiftly muffled when Steve shot her a quick glare.

"Then she wouldn't have been in our barn...?" risked the boy, giving his father a look through his eyelashes that he knew usually got him what he wanted.

"In," was Steve’s gruff reply, and his tone brooked no argument.

The two of them watched the boy scurry off, no doubt to receive a more extensive telling off once he reached the kitchen.

"I prefer my meals full grown," said the dragon quietly. Steve cocked his head at her.

"Like me?"

Her snort wreathed him in that strange smell again, a mix of sulphur and petrol with overtones of blood and old ash. "I am alone and exiled, Prophet. To kill you in the seat of your power with many of your allies ranged around you would be unwise, I suspect. I may be nearing the end of my days, but I would like to see out my last few in peace. Going on a rampage here would hardly achieve that."

"True."

They remained in silence for a moment, then she sighed. "Besides," she added, and now her voice contained sadness, "I am rather fond of children. I have offspring of my own, and with my misfortune I am forced to worry about their welfare."

He turned to look at the dragon - _really_ look at her, in the paleness of the winter morning.

She looked old, and tired. Still a bloody great lizard and dangerous as hell, but the melancholy she exuded was mirrored in the droop of her neck, the dullness in her previously shining yellow eyes. In the daylight he could see old scars knitting across her hide, missing scales, the evidence of old battles and previous hardship. She was staring into the mists of the morning beyond the boundaries of his property, as though she could see beyond the skin of the world to where her younglings were hidden from her.

"It's Steve," he said, coming to a decision, "or Harry. Don't mind which one you use, really. Look," he continued, as she angled her head at him in surprise, "why don't you come up to the house? I know the kids would love to meet you."

"But the unicorn..." she rumbled, uncertainty running through her words.

"Will just have to get used to you, right?"

He took a few paces, then turned back to beckon her on. She stared, then chuckled; the process of her rising, however, sounded decidedly painful. She stretched once she'd managed to shuffle into the courtyard, and he winced to hear the various creaks, crunches and groans that came from her joints as she limbered up. She shot him a rather wry smile as she settled everything back into place with a final shake, a loud pop from one wing joint when she gave it an extra twitch to make it lay in its correct position along her spine.

"Advancing age, Pro-- Steve. It takes longer each morning to get yourself moving, don't you find?"

He shook his head, but smiled. "Yeah, the old back really gives me gyp some days. Come on."

The sensation of being followed by a dragon that towered over you was an uncomfortable one, no matter how much the dragon in question had assured you that it meant you no harm. The primitive bit of the brain that remembered noises from the entrance of the cave in the dark was yelling about running and hiding, and Steve could feel the skin between his shoulder blades itching a bit at the thought.

When they rounded the corner of the house he had to roll his eyes. Wren had been coaxed out of his hiding place behind the rosebushes and was standing with Nicko who was beaming all over his broad face, one arm flung across the damp silver back of the unicorn as the kids gathered round him. Wren had his head lowered, patiently allowing his nose to be petted, and took a slice of apple from Lauren's palm with a flutter of long dark eyelashes that even had Nicko chuckling.

"You flirt," he'd just said, when the dragon appeared around the corner of the house.

Wren lifted his head and rumbled a challenge deep in his chest, nostrils flared at the stink of the old enemy and ears pinned flat to his head. She strolled on to the damp lawn, ignoring the increasingly agitated unicorn until she was close enough to touch him - and then she sat on her haunches, and stared at him.

Dave, Adrian and Janick had herded the kids back in the house as soon as the unicorn had flung his head up, unwilling to see the reaction if any of Steve's brood got caught up in the age-old enmity between the two creatures.

Wren reared and squealed, his long silver mane flying over his shoulders and brandished horn menacing in the grey light of morning. Nicko remained by his side, one hand on the muscular shoulder, although he looked unhappy at the tension in the air.

"Be still, horned one," sighed the dragon, and Wren dropped to all four hooves again. He didn't relax, nor did he lift his ears from their place flattened against his skull; his dark eyes rolled, and Nicko moved to soothe the agitated beast. He fidgeted and stamped, and it was as clear as a shout in the cold air that he would like nothing better than to charge the dragon sitting in such a relaxed fashion no more than ten feet away.

"Now Bruce should be back today," Nicko said quickly, "so we can get all this sorted out without any more squabbling, right Jenny?"

The dragon tilted her head in agreement. "Indeed. I have no wish to harm anyone, so such shows of aggression are wasted on me.” She eyed Wren with a look of distaste. “Killing each other would hardly aid our kind, would it?"

Wren fidgeted, then shook out his glorious mane with a snort that shook his sides. _Indeed not. Although I find the presence of such as yourself... unsettling, to say the least._

"And you think I do not? Child, I am older than even you can conceive and have fought many, many battles - and now I find myself allied to not only one of the ancient enemy, but a collection of creatures that in the past would have been important merely for their flavour."

Nicko swallowed a laugh, but the dragon winked at him and it escaped as a chuckle, much to the unicorn’s apparent disgust.

"Well, you're an honest creature anyway.” He frowned, seeing the changes in the dragon’s demeanour from the previous night, just as Steve had. “You OK, love?" he asked.

She had sagged a little, hooded her eyes and huddled a little closer into herself. She lifted her head, and nodded her long nose at Nicko.

"Rather cold, is all," she said. "This plane is a chill place for one such as I, and the weather is... less than helpful."

"I think there's a space heater in the garage," said a new voice, and all turned to see Lauren, who had emerged from the house and now approached the dragon with caution. She stopped short, and cocked her head at the newcomer. She had been born into an unusual family, and had all the faculties and abilities her father had; she’d always been surrounded by the strangeness of Faerie, but a dragon was new even for her.

Jenny stared right back, and the two measured each other with their gazes for a moment.

"If you'd hurt my brother," she said flatly, apparently unfazed by the fact that she was tiny compared to the huge bulk of the dragon, "I would have killed you."

Jenny cocked her head, and the curve that adorned her long thin lips could only be regarded as a smirk. She arched her neck, and lowered her head until one great eye was hanging just in front of Lauren's face.

"Of course," she rumbled, “and I would expect nothing less.” She drew out the last syllable into a hiss through bared teeth then lifted her head away and chuckled, a deep grind of amusement from somewhere in her chest.

Lauren stared, a little pale from the shock of being quite so close to the intimidating sight of a dragon's head, then snorted. Nicko couldn't suppress a grin; she sounded so much like her father when she did that there was absolutely no doubt just whose blood ran in her veins.

"That probably sounded a bit cocky, didn't it?"

Jenny rose to her feet once more, and shook herself out with another cacophony of rattles and pops. "Perhaps a little... overconfident," she said with a wink. Lauren laughed.

"Are you hungry?" she asked, "I think we've got some bacon in the fridge...."

The boom of laughter that erupted from the dragon was unexpected, but was a joyful sound nevertheless; Steve found himself chuckling along with it, even if it did make Wren flinch and lay his ears flat again.

"Dear child, how thoughtful - thank you! But no, I doubt that you could hold enough in your larders to satisfy my appetite. But never fear," she added, "I do not need to feed. Between age and circumstance I find myself without any craving for food."

"You sure?" asked Lauren, eyebrow cocked. The dragon nodded, still wearing an expression of amused affection.

"Indeed. I can go for a great deal of time - years, as you measure them - between feeds, if I have to."

"Wow," said Lauren, then bit her lip. "You must," she said finally, sounding as though she really didn't want to ask the question, "get really hungry, then?"

Jenny dropped another of those surprising winks. "There is a reason that we are so often described as rapacious beasts, child. A flight of dragons that are ready to feed can be, ah," and she cocked her head, a wicked little sparkle in her eye, "a little... indiscriminate when it comes to what they ingest."

Wren snorted, and stamped his forehoof. The smile faded from the dragon's face, and she looked away.

"It is cold," she murmured, “and if there is some form of heating in that shelter... well, it would be most welcome."

She turned to leave, but Steve’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. “Would you mind if the kids went with you?” he asked, “I know they’ve been dying to meet you. And talk your ears off, knowing that lot.”

Lauren’s eyes rolled. “Dad, you have no idea. Even Nathaniel, and you would have thought he’d outgrown that sort of thing by now.”

Indeed, the face of Steve’s eldest son was above those of his siblings in the kitchen window, avidly watching the scene unfolding outside. Steve laughed, and Jenny tilted her head to look at him with an unfathomable expression in her great, golden eyes.

“You would trust me with your offspring, unattended,” she said softly, and from the corner of his eye Steve could see Nicko had placed one broad palm over Wren’s nostrils to silence the enraged snort he was sure he would otherwise be hearing.

“Well, like you said,” he told her with a shrug, “you’d be pretty stupid to do anything, wouldn’t you? And I don’t think you’re stupid at all. But,” he added, and he placed one hand on her face, “harm one hair on their heads....”

She nodded, slowly, and he stepped back. She looked at the cluster of eager faces in the window, and arched one scaled eyebrow at the watchers.

“Well? Are you going to hide in there all day, or will you come and be sure of an old lady’s comfort on such a grey morning?”

Six sets of eyes swivelled to look at Steve, and when he nodded the back door burst open, and the dragon was practically climbed on by a cluster of children and adolescents. Even Stephanas - now dressed in clothing borrowed from his half-brothers, and indistinguishable from them - forgot his fear in the excitement, and left his spear behind him. 

Wren was slightly mollified about his abandonment when Callie, perhaps understanding the pain of desertion, ran back to him and kissed the unicorn on his soft white nose.

“I still like you best,” she whispered, “I’ll be back soon,” then dashed off after her brothers and sisters to escort the dragon to a more comfortable place of rest. Steve watched them go, then turned back to watch Wren snort and shake his mane, then head off to graze further away on the lawn. Nicko came across to stand with him, still beaming, and smelling rather like a wet horse.

“Well, that went better than it could have done,” he boomed cheerfully. “Now, what say we go and have a spot of breakfast?”

Steve shook his head and sighed. If he thought his life was going to get any easier after he’d reopened the door between worlds, the last few weeks had severely disabused him of the notion.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he said, and the two men retreated to the warmth of the kitchen to have breakfast, drink coffee, and forget all about monsters and magic - if only for a little while.

_~tbc~_


	13. The Great Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reality started to tilt, to swirl around them; Pan gripped Bruce's hand tight, and Wren reared up to thrash the air with his front hooves. The great wings beat harder, and the ground began to melt into the staggering unreality needed for the long, dark fall between realities.
> 
> Bound by necessity, they fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now here's the thing. The previous chapter was posted in October 2007, and this one was completed in February 2016. The plan is to finish this thing, and we're rolling ahead - it should be somewhat less than eight years before I finish the next chapter....

****

  
_~Chapter Twelve~_

_The Great Unknown_   


Steve managed to slip away after breakfast to get some much-needed paperwork done. There wasn't anything else they could do until Bruce returned; and besides, he felt the need for a little mundane reality for a while.

A shuffle of hooves on carpet disabused him of that notion, and he pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

"Pan. What is it now?"

"I forget that you know very few of our legends, Prophet. We know them in the bone; you have never been told."

"What difference would it make?"

"You may not be as accepting of the dragon. If you knew what they are capable of, what crimes that clan has committed--"

Steve jumped to his feet, advanced on Pan, backed him up a pace. "So? So what? I gotta deal with what's happening here and now, not fret about what _has_ happened. She's here, so's the bloody unicorn, get over it."

The God made no answer, just stepped forward and placed both hands on Steve's shoulders. "Perhaps," he said, voice a deep brown rumble, "if I showed you...."

His eyes, always compelling, held Steve's gaze. They expanded, pulled him into their depths until his whole world was filled with that insistent amber gaze. A rush of movement, the curl and swoop of falling, then black.

Vision returned slowly. Steve blinked furiously, rubbed his eyes to clear them; he was outside, laid in thick grass, and he couldn't hear anything recognisable. He sat up with a grunt of pain, tried to stretch his impossibly stiff back into some semblance of normality before he tried to get up. No point falling straight back over again.

A large hand appeared in his field of vision; Pan. He accepted it and allowed himself to be pulled up, took the opportunity to have a good look around. Outside - obviously - but nowhere he'd been before. It didn't smell right, for one thing; most people didn't realise what a large part smell played in their perception of a place. And he'd been all over the world and nowhere smelled quite like this... and it wasn't faerie either. Wherever they were, he'd never been there before.

"So. Where are we?"

Pan shrugged. "Long ago and far away. You are in one of our stories, Prophet - this is the only way you will realise what you have done."

It didn't feel very fictional. The ground was hard, the grass was green, the trees murmured in the breeze and the small village visible just over the next ridge hummed with late afternoon activity. Children played, men came home from the fields; yes, the language wasn't anything Steve was familiar with and the silhouettes of the people seemed subtly wrong, somehow, but so far it wasn't any weirder than anything he'd seen on either side of the barrier.

They walked around the village, the long grass dragging at their feet. Nothing unusual; the people were winding down, sleepy children shooed away into the modest little stone houses as the light faded, a group of men clustered around a larger building that had 'pub' written all over it, even if Steve didn't understand the language. It all seemed very... peaceful. Steve stopped, and heaved a huge sigh before turning to regard Pan.

"Something horrible is going to happen, isn't it?"

"Let the tale unfold, Prophet. All I ask is that you watch."

With that, something black appeared on the horizon. A long way up and very far away, whatever they were - because there were definitely several of them - the silhouettes were growing bigger. Before long sound began to accompany vision; a whickering sound like swans in flight, but somehow sharper. 

"You could have just told me."

Pan shrugged, but kept his gaze on the approaching squadron.

Even the people of the village had realised something was up; the men from the pub had begun to point and exclaim, and a few had even called their families out to see what these strange shapes could be. Closer still, and now the shapes were recognisable; draconic, reptilian, and focused on their target. Alarm began to spread, the men began to run and shout, and Steve let out a long breath through his nose.

"I'm sure this is going to be bad, but--"

"You need to see how bad. Watch."

And the attack began.

~*~

It was hours later. Steve perched on a piece of broken stonework that had been part of the pub wall, and gazed blankly across the scorched earth that had been - not so very long ago - a little farming community in the middle of nowhere. Now, it was just a wasteland of smashed houses, torn ground, and blood. The dragons had been thorough, but not in any way merciful; the attack had been well co-ordinated and brutally efficient. They had chased people across the fields, picked them off one at a time; they had killed the people with no regard to age or sex or infirmity.

It had been, as Steve had expected, horrible. Human levels of cruelty allied with the terrifying efficiency of a hungry reptile. To watch a cat torture a mouse is horrible; this had been many levels of magnitude worse.

There was nobody left alive, and once he was sure his voice would be steady Steve turned to face Pan. The God had watched the whole scene unfold with no apparent show of emotion; his gaze was cold, and he hadn't replied to anything Steve had said from when the attack started.

"So tell me," he said, voice raw through a smoke-abraded throat, "what this was for? How is this different from what people do to each other all the time? Dragons bad - I get it. But have you spoken to Nicko lately? What people are doing to the unicorns? I don't hear you proposing a crusade against humanity...."

His voice tailed off, and he looked away from the torn ruins of the town. The sigh came right up from his boots, and took all his fight with it.

"Somebody is always the enemy. Somebody wants revenge. One atrocity on top of another, isn't that how it goes?"

Pan glared at him, eyes dark. "But you don't understa--"

"I understand, all right. So what do you want me to do? I have a unicorn in my back garden, a dragon in my barn, you in my house and a really pissed off oil baron who's going to want the lot of us dead. And has the power to do it. Not magical power, Pan, but the power to fuck my life up - totally."

"And my children are _dead_ , Prophet!"

Steve shrank a little more. 

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. And we're gonna stop this, mate, I swear."

Pan snarled, seized Steve by the shoulders and tightened his fingers as though he wanted to do nothing more than shake some sense into him. Before he'd got any further than a sharp jerk he seemed to remember where they were--

\--and Steve was alone in his study once more.

~*~

The dragon seemed to be dozing when Steve slipped into the barn a short time later. 

"Jenny?"

A huge eye cracked open, and she shifted on the bales of straw laid out for her comfort. The kids had disappeared, presumably indoors for something to eat, or to the games consoles they held so dear; dragons and unicorns might be cool, but they couldn't compete for long with the latest illicitly-obtained video game full of swearing and fast cars and violence. She eyed him, and tilted her head thoughtfully while she watched him approach.

"There is something different - ah. The godling has shown you some history, I assume?"

Her joints creaked as she turned to face him, and the expression on her long face was unreadable. Steve shrugged, and crossed to where he could make himself comfortable while they talked.

"Yeah. I dunno what he expected, though."

"To shock you? Inflame you with horror? Cause you to come back here and run me through with a pikestaff?" her voice was loaded with contempt, and Steve had to clamp his teeth shut on the first angry retort that came to mind. The vision had been... horrible, at best.

"If my kids had been killed the way his were, I'd be pretty bloody furious too. So would you, I bet. So stop being a bitch about it," he leaned forward, glared into deep set eyes that glittered with dark intelligence, "and help me understand just what the _fuck_ is going on here!"

There was silence for a moment, then she shifted to sit on her haunches and stared out at the scrap of sky visible between the almost-shut doors.

"As you have said yourself, we are what we are. But we grew too numerous, too powerful, and we ravened through the worlds at will. There are not many planes of existence that have no legends of dragons. Whole worlds we left devoid of life; nothing moved between the scorched remnants of life, and still we ravened on. So it was agreed between the most powerful of those beings alive at the time that we should sleep - and we, Prophet, were in full agreement with this plan."

" _What?_ "

"What use are worlds empty of life? What were we supposed to do when we were the last lifeform, shrieking from one burned out wasteland to another? Had it not stopped we would have been reduced to destroying each other in our impotent, frustrated rage - and hunger, Prophet, never forget that we hunger. No, Prophet-" and he was too stunned to remind her that she'd agreed to call him Steve - "if we are to be the instruments of the end of the universe, then let us raven at the proper time. And the dawn of time was not it."

"And now?" he asked, once he'd got enough breath back in his lungs to reply.

"Is it time for Armageddon?" she asked, her expression incongruously cheerful. "Has Ragnarok arrived? Do the Horsemen ride out, has the church's Antichrist arisen?"

"Depends who you ask."

"I do not think so, Steve. You are still a young species, as these things go; one day it will be our time, and you and your kind will cower in the shattered remains of your megacities and gibber in terror as the beasts from the darkness of your ancient imagination pick you off one.. by... one."

Her voice had dropped to a low croon, and the images that played across the screen of Steve's imagination made him shudder. One day, she would be right--

"But not today," she said, and Steve wheezed in a breath. Jesus, but what that creature could do with her voice.

"So what are you saying, exactly?" he asked, and the dragon tilted her head toward him with a smile.

"We need to go back to sleep - all of us. Because if we do not--" and her claws scratched huge, dark furrows in the concrete floor of the garage, "--it might turn out to be the end of the world, after all."

~*~

By the time Steve walked back to his kitchen Bruce, Gem and the goblins had arrived from the airport, and shared the kitchen table with a solemn Pan. 

"I've seen the unicorn," began Bruce, with little preamble, "and Pan tells me that the dragon is in the barn."

"You have spoken to her?" asked Pan. Steve eyed him for a moment, then went to grab some coffee.

"Yeah. And she says that the dragons aren't supposed to be awake - they were supposed to stay asleep until the end of time, then lay waste to what's left. Her words, by the way."

"She said that?"

Steve's sharp grin at Pan was wolfish. "Didn't expect that, did you? She was telling me that the Sheikh has got a sorceror of his own, and it was him that managed to free the dragons--"

"Impossible," snapped Pan.

"--with assistance from the High Fae, and powered by the death of the unicorns."

Pan and Bruce exchanged a long look, and then the god shrugged. "Fine. Yes, that might just be possible. So what does she suggest?"

Steve grinned. "Let's get everybody together. I don't want to have to say this twice."

~*~

The council of war took place, as usual, around the kitchen table. In addition to the six men was Pan, Gem, Bruce's goblin guard, Lauren, and Stephanas; Steve had wanted to exclude them but - as was rather forcefully pointed out by his eldest - they were as much a part of this whole thing as any of them, and they had a right to know what was going on. Nicko jumped up, unlatched the kitchen window and flung open the back door; Wren stuck his head through the window, and Jenny's enormous muzzle poked through the door. Steve snorted at the sight; it was a big kitchen, but it was full to bursting now, standing room only.

Nicko tucked himself back between Pan and Gem, cracked a beer, and grinned at his friend.

"We got us quite the party, right guys? So come on 'Arry, what's the plan?"

Steve got to his feet, regarded his troops - such as they were - and took a deep breath. _Here goes_.

"We can't do anything for Faery until we've cut off the soldier's supplies. And that means stopping their sorceror in this world - take him out, and we strand the High Fae on the wrong side--"

"In the grey planes. I _like_ it," muttered Pan, his grin savage.

"--and whatever unicorns are stuck get to come back here. If we can find their stash of, well, spell ingredients, I guess you could say--"

Wren snorted, and even Jenny rumbled.

"--then we cut off the power that's supplying those troops over there. Once that's done, then we need Jenny's help."

The dragon lifted her head until the back of her skull touched the lintel of the door, and she turned her head to include the whole group in her ancient gaze.

"I will make contact with my sons and daughters. I think, once they realise how they have been deceived and used, they will agree to go back to sleep, to wait until our time has come to be free. It _will_ come; but it is not today."

 _Do you really think they will agree?_ asked the unicorn, and his mental voice was shaded with doubt. Jenny snorted, a great gust that stirred the air all the way across the room.

"They are my children. They had better agree."

"So let's for the moment assume that Jenny works her magic and all the dragons agree to stay out of faery for the foreseeable future. There's still a load of tanks and rockets over there, isn't there? So what do we do then? Kill 'em all? All those soldiers? You know, the ones that were ordered to go over there and are prolly scared to death of all the things they've seen?"

Nickos words were followed by an uncomfortable silence. Pan shifted his weight, opened his mouth to speak, but Steve beat him to it.

"We give them a chance to surrender," he said, then nodded at Stephanas. "If they agree, then we get Pan and Diana to send them all home."

"And if they refuse?" asked Pan.

"Then the goblin tribes wipe them off the map," said Bruce.

"Zheyyyy have khilled us," said Gem with a shrug.

"They burned my forests, murdered my children. Poisoned my rivers," agreed Pan quietly.

"They're children," said Nicko.

"And that is why we'll give them a chance. Look, even if they refuse we'll still send home any that we capture, OK? We're not monsters, Nicko."

"Speak for yourself," growled Jenny.

 _Indeed. I will avenge my people if I can, Prophet._

"Fine. Fine. We're all murderous bastards, given an opportunity. Does that make you happy?"

Pan smiled at Steve. "Yes. Prophet, we're getting ahead of ourselves, are we not? One step at a time. First, we need to find the place where the unicorns are being murdered."

Davey waved a piece of paper he'd been scribbling on. "Got it. It's up in the mountains in Afghanistan, pretty inaccessible under normal circumstances. But Jenny assures me she can get us there with Wren's help, so between those two, Gem, and Bruce's little troupe it should be easy in, easy out."

"And we'll have to kill people," said Nicko flatly.

"You leave that to me," said Jenny.

~*~

The war party consisted of Jenny, Wren, Pan, Steve, Bruce - plus entourage - Nicko, and Davey.

H fretted as they got ready to go. "Nicko, you're a pacifist. What are you going to do if they attack you?"

"Hide behind my boy here," and he stroked Wren's nose where his head stuck through the kitchen window, "I've got my staff, and the good thing with a staff is that everything happens at the other end of it, to whit, a long long way away from my fragile body."  
Wren snorted, and Nicko patted him with a chuckle. "Don't you worry about me, H, it's Davey you ought to be worried about."

"Hey!"

"He's got a point. Why are you even going, again?"

Dave scowled. "Magic, remember? Anyway, Bob's going to be sticking close to me - we're there to find the magical... artefacts."

"Jenny, Pan and Gem are going to be doing all the violence," said Nicko, solemn now, "we're just there for the other stuff."

"Speaking of other stuff, we'd better get going," said Dave, but H caught his sleeve as he turned to follow the others to the barn.

"Just... be careful, OK? If you don't come back, well..." he trailed off, scratched absently at his chin, then swung his gaze back to Dave's face, "we won't sound the same, will we?"

Dave pulled him into a hug. "Idiot. We'll be fine. Trust me, OK?"

"Not bloody likely," H muttered, and watched them head off to war.

~*~

They were going to make the jump from the open area behind the barn, which gave enough room for Jenny to spread her wings; Steve went over last minute plans with the dragon, who fidgeted and rustled, eager to get going. Wren was almost as bad, and trod on Nicko's toes several times in his anxious dance.

Gem rattled at Bruce, who touched her on the shoulder before he turned to Steve.

"Mate, we've got to get going before this lot bloody explode. You ready?"

Pan carried an enormous sword, Gem was armed with what looked like an extremely nasty set of knuckle dusters, the goblins bristled with bladed weapons - as did Bruce. The only one of them carrying a firearm was Steve, although he also carried the magnificent sword that he'd last wielded at the final battle in Faery, when they'd opened the door. Davey, like Nicko, carried a staff, although he would have been the first to admit that 'staff' was a rather grand term for what was, at the end of the day, a glorified pickaxe handle. They'd all been in enough scuffles in their younger days to appreciate the use of a nice solid three foot length of hickory in hands desperate enough to give it a really _hard_ swing.

Jenny and Wren's weapons were built in, as it were.

"Up you get, Prophet," said Jenny, cocking an eye at Steve. He looked up at the shoulder she'd lowered, and swallowed hard.

"Up there?"

"Yes. You and Lord Davey of the magic. He can sit behind you."

"Shit."

"Quite. Do you need help?"

Steve shot her the dirtiest look he could summon up at such short notice, and stepped up on to the foreleg she'd angled like a step. "You didn't," he grumbled as he dug his fingertips into her scales to find a handhold, "mention that we would have to," he got one arm across her neck, scrabbled for a toe hold, "actually sit on top of you," finally managed to get his leg over and pull himself upright, "to bloody get there. You OK Dave?"

Pan and Gem between them managed to hoist Dave high enough that Steve could grab his arm and haul him up to sit at his back. He clutched at Steve's arms and stared down at the ground; it seemed a very long way away, and he decided that he'd be better off if he shut his eyes.

"Oi, what about me?" asked Nicko, and Wren turned his head to regard him fondly.

 _Up you get_ , he said, and turned himself broadside to his friend.

For once, Nicko didn't know what to say, which reduced Bruce to helpless snorts of laughter. 

"I dunno what you're laughing at, how are you getting over? You gonna ride Pan, are you?"

"Whilst I would not be averse," rumbled the god, "all he needs to do is take my hand. Any mounting can be done later, once we return victorious."

"You dirty bastard," said Steve, then leaned down to review his odd little band of troops. "Nick, there's a mounting block in front of the barn, that should make life a bit easier. Right, are we ready?"

It took the unicorn no more than a minute to trot over to the block, and a little longer for Nicko to climb aboard; as awkward as he felt, there was something so very right about partnering his friend in such a way.

_Grip with your knees, my friend. And don't worry - I will not let you fall. Oh, and you won't hurt me if you hang on to my mane._

"You sure, mate?"

_Quite sure._

"Are we ready now?" yelled Steve, and at the shouts in the affirmative Jenny arched her wings and began to beat them. 

Reality started to tilt, to swirl around them; Pan gripped Bruce's hand tight, and Wren reared up to thrash the air with his front hooves. The great wings beat harder, and the ground began to melt into the staggering unreality needed for the long, dark fall between realities. 

Bound by necessity, they fell.

~*~

The landing was unremarkable, or as unremarkable as a war party that included a dragon, a unicorn and an ambulatory rock could be. 

They had arrived on a tiny plateau, the air sharp and thin, so clean it scorched the lungs when you breathed in, and so cold your breath crystallised in front of your eyes when you breathed out. It was bright, the sun directly overhead and the shadows sharp; the cold air was laced with the thin, chill stench of rot, and it swirled with menace on the breeze.

"Jenny?" asked Steve, and the dragon angled her shoulder to allow he and Davey to slide off the side. Pan and Gem caught them, helped them down; Nicko slid from Wren's back, barely paused to acknowledge that everyone was safe before he trotted off to one side of the rocky clearing and peered down the slope.

They joined him, kept low behind the rocks, and spied down the slope. Off to one side was a pen filled with unicorns; they shifted and swirled, whickered and tried to push through the flimsy looking fences but had to step back, always back at the last moment. Their despair was evident even from such a distance, and had it not been for Gem's hand on one shoulder and Wren's soft nose on the other Nicko would have been off down the slope at a flat run. 

_Wait. If we charge in there, they will all be dead before we can reach them._

Behind the corral was an area that Nicko still saw in his nightmares, an area hung with hides and splashed with blood, busy with flies and the source of that horrible, thin stench that clung so to the back of the throat.

Jenny's head peered around the rock, and her snort was quiet. For a moment her smell of petrol and old ash overwhelmed the other, more organic smells, and they had never felt quite so grateful for it.

"There," she murmured, "to the left. That's a High Fae."

A series of caves in the rock wall appeared to be inhabited. Nicko's description of the creatures that had done the killing suggested that it was they that hid there; several tents were dotted against the rocks, one with a few goats tethered outside it. Davey angled his athame, and nodded.

"In there. That's the sorceror."

Of course, there were human guards as well. They patrolled the perimeter, heavily armed but clearly not paying that much attention - after all, they were in the middle of nowhere up a mountain. Who could attack them up here? 

The group drew back behind their pile of rocks. Bruce smoothed a patch of dust, and began to sketch out the plan of attack.

"Davey, you stay up here and block that sorceror. I'll leave a couple of goblins with you, OK? Keep your head down. Steve, Nicko, you creep round to the unicorns. Gem, the rest of the goblins and I will head for those caves and bash whatever comes out. Wren, you stay here with Dave until we've taken down those guys with the guns, OK?"

"And I?" asked the dragon. Bruce shot her the nastiest grin she'd ever seen on a human.

"Hit 'em hard," he said.

_~tbc~_


	14. Shadows Of The Valley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was the creature that had haunted his dreams, the one that had tortured Blaze so; the arrogant creature that had taken his wife from him, kidnapped his children—and so far, it had escaped every consequence of note. Well, fate had finally caught up with it—and he'd been the instrument of that fate, as ever.
> 
> He'd be angry about that, later, but for now they needed to get moving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Although this tale features characters that share an awful lot of characteristics with the individuals who go to make up the featured rock band, it isn't them. I'm fully aware of that fact; they're completely their own people, and this is a fantasy based on their stage personas, interviews and other material in the public domain. No malice or impeachment is intended to the band, their families, friends, management companies or anyone else involved with them in any way, shape or form. No money is being made from this tale, it's written purely for the enjoyment of the author...and her readers.
> 
> It's fiction. Enjoy it as such.

**_~Chapter Thirteen~  
Shadows of The Valley_ **

A quiet afternoon, as all afternoons were quiet in this godforsaken corner of Hell. Nothing ever happened here.

Well, except for what was happening to the unicorns, but that was nothing to do with him. He was paid to watch out for intruders, and shoot anyone on sight who tried to break in.

So far, he'd been up here for months and only had to shoot one person - a boy herding goats who'd come too close. Who else would be wandering up here, tucked out of sight on the side of a mountain? Almost impossible to reach, not on any trade routes - he'd grown up in the hills, and even he thought this place stupidly isolated. Who cared what happened to a bunch of weird horses? They weren't even allowed to eat them.

He slunk off for a smoke, trying to hide out of the chill breeze that whistled between the rocks, and so missed the dragon beginning her attack run.

He never missed another thing.

~*~

Bruce, Steve and Nicko kept flat behind the rocks as their dragon screamed overhead, lances of fire creating havoc amongst the inhabitants of the lonely camp. Voices rose in terror, and the unicorns began to cry out; gunfire rattled up at the huge lizard, but fell silent as she swept on a tight turn and burned the shooters to ash.

Behind them, they could hear quiet chanting; Davey sat cross legged inside a protective circle, reached out with mind and skill to block the sorceror down the hill from creating any havoc with his own skill.

Under cover of the insane noise and clouds of dust and smoke, Steve and Nicko roused themselves and began to creep along a mostly-hidden goat track that led to the awful corral. Wren waited, watched his friends and quivered in a mixture of fear and anticipation, poised for the moment when he could race down to join them.

"Go!" hissed Bruce to Gem and Pan, and began his own trek down behind them, slipping and scrabbling on the loose shale.

It was a bloody mess down there. The dark hooded creatures that Nicko had seen time and again in his dreams flowed out of the caves, streamed toward the corral; several of them exploded into flame as Jenny screamed another pass, and Gem's massive, blade-laden fists accounted for three more. Steve shot past them in Pan's wake, heading for the cave entrance, and the few still running suddenly found themselves up against a very, very angry Nicko.

"Right," he snarled, and made his staff ready, "let's see how you like this, you bastards. Come on!"

They hesitated for a moment, then drew their long silver knives and charged.

~*~

Jenny braked hard and turned in her own length barely twenty feet above the ground. Davey ignored her and kept chanting, but his goblin guard ducked and cursed at the huge lizard and her antics.

"Wren! _Now!_ " she roared, and swept back down the mountain on her next run.

Sparing a brief backward glance at the magician, he tore off down the track to aid Nicko - and free his people.

~*~

Nicko was hard pressed, but the lessons he'd learned during the last battle in Faery were coming back to him with alacrity. Which was a good thing; the executioners were tough and fast, and he was having to fall back one step at a time.

He swung the staff, knocked one of them flat but felt a movement of air over his shoulder, a squeal from behind him and he dropped to his knees before the executioner could take his head off. He felt a flood of cold, and thought _this is it, I'm going to die here --_

A silver spike appeared through the chest of the creature that had been about to take him out, and he bared his teeth in a savage grin. Wren shook the corpse off his horn, and the two of them turned to face the last remaining executioner.

_Together, my friend_ , said Wren, and they both charged their enemy.

~*~

Steve had drawn his shotgun and raced for the tents, intent on finding the last of the High Fae that had caused so much pain. Jenny's attack had dealt with the human guards, there was frustrated screeching coming from the sorceror's tent, Pan and Gem had vanished into the caves so that just left--

"Prophet," growled a familiar voice, and Steve whipped round.

It was the High Fae he'd last seen in a field in Essex, that awful night when Blaze had been attacked. The Fae bared its teeth, and Steve couldn't help but notice that it looked somewhat healthier than it had the last time he'd seen it; the parchment skin looked less like it had been mouldering in a grave, and even approached the translucent beauty the species had - once - been renowned for. Despite their opposition to the opening of the door between worlds, it appeared to have done the species good. The one thing it hadn't done, however, was improve their temperament.

Steve levelled his shotgun at its face.

"Surrender," he snapped, "or I'll blow your fucking head off."

It raised both hands, grinned at him. "You wouldn't. You need me. You will never rescue the rest of the unicorns without me--"

"Prophet!" bellowed Pan, emerging from the caves with Gem and a string of High Fae bound and gagged. "The caves are clear. The sorceror is neutralised - we are victorious!"

Jenny backwinged to a halt in the middle of the flat area, taking the time to shred several tents with her claws - just in case, she told them later with a wicked grin - and regarded their little force with a pleased expression. Tired and rather battered, none of them had taken more than minor knocks.

"I think we can safely say this has been a success," she beamed, "now. Prophet. What do you want to do with-" she flicked a Fae with her claw, knocked it off its feet, "- these?"

Steve, still with shotgun levelled at the face of his erstwhile tormentor, found himself rather neatly impaled on the horns of a dilemma. Did he murder the Fae in cold blood, which he knew would be the preferred option of their non-human allies, or did he let them go? Because he had nowhere to imprison them, so his options were somewhat limited. He knew what Diana the huntress would do. And after everything they'd done, didn't they deserve to be killed?

They'd killed Pan's children. They'd murdered the unicorns. They had tried to kill his own children, for fuck's sake.

Even so, he couldn't just shoot them.

Could he?

~*~

Nicko doubled over, hands on his knees, and wheezed in the thin air. Wren nudged him and he leaned on the unicorn's head for a moment; it had been a fast, hard battle, but here they were victorious against all the odds. He straightened, picked up his staff, and eyed the corral.

"Righto then, first order of business - it seems to be all talky-talky up there so lets get this 'orrible bloody fence down, shall we?"

The unicorns inside had stopped milling about, and watched Nicko closely as he paced along the fence, looked for a weak point. One of the mares stretched her nose out, indicated a knot of fibres that held a broken pole.

_Try here_ , she said in his mind. _They spent a long time fixing it when we were brought in. The gate is sealed with stronger magic than we can break - we are weak._

"All right darlin', never fear," he boomed, and wedged his staff between the broken pole and its neighbour. A convulsive heave, a crackle of splintered wood, and there was a gap in the fence; he pulled the totems off that bracketed the area, threw them as far away as he could, and went back to kicking down the barrier.

A rush of silver hides and they were free. Nicko leaned on Wren in the centre of a milling gyre of unicorns, some kicking their heels up, some tossing their heads, all of them trembling with the joy of freedom.

"Nicko!" called a voice, and he looked up to see Dave leaning on a rock above where the unicorns danced. "They going to be OK if I come down there?"

Wren snorted. _You will be quite safe, Dave of the magic. You have done us no harm._

"Good. Because I've seen what you can do, and I do _not_ want it happening to me!"

He jumped down to them, staggered a little and was caught by his friend, who straightened him up and dusted him down.

"There you go, all steady now. So you've sorted out the little shit who started all," Nicko waved his hand at the grisly area behind them, "this? Cos if you haven't we need to get up there and finish him off."

"I think Steve's dealing with it now," said Dave, face uncharacteristically serious, "but I don't know what he's going to do."

"Kill 'em." said Nicko flatly. There was a quiet sound from the unicorns, who clearly agreed with him.

"Perhaps," said Dave, "let's go up there and see what his decision is, shall we?"

~*~

Steve had drawn Pan off to one side, and Bruce joined them with the ever present Bob by his knee.

"Can't we just imprison them somewhere?" he asked. He clutched his shotgun tightly, feeling rather stupid with the weapon that he really didn't want to use now that the heat of battle had passed.

"Where would you suggest?" asked Bruce with a shrug. "Your place? Faery's under siege as it is. What do we need them alive for, anyway?"

"There are many unicorns unaccounted for," rumbled Pan, arms folded and face impassive. In the thin air of the mountain he was magnificent, a strange wildness here in the bleak beauty of the grey plains. "But whether these creatures actually know where they are..." he shrugged.

"I can't just kill them," Steve muttered.

"Then allow me," rumbled the dragon from overhead. It turned out that having a neck like a crane had allowed her to eavesdrop from above, and she bared her teeth in anticipated pleasure.

"Or I," added Pan, "and if you asked, I'm sure Wren or Gem would oblige. We owe them, Prophet - they tortured us all for long ages, denied us our place, brought war to our sacred spaces." The god was growing angry, seeming even larger as his passion surged. "They have killed my children, destroyed even more of our home! Prophet, you are part of our world but not truly of it. This revenge has been a long time coming, and I would suggest," now he spat the words through clenched teeth, "that you let us take it."

"Well said," replied Jenny cheerfully.

"Fuck off," Pan snapped. The dragon laughed, a grind and rattle of amusement accompanied by that petrol and old blood smell.

"He does have a point," agreed Bruce quietly, "you haven't seen what's been done to the goblin tribes. They're all hiding underground, just waiting for someone - for us, Steve - to come and lead them out. These guys have done that to them, and done it knowingly. If you can't hack it, then maybe you just need to go and sit on a rock and look at the unicorns."

"Bloody hell," muttered Steve, and turned on his heel to march back to where the High Fae stood in a little huddle, bound and helpless.

"Right," he snapped when he reached them. "You would have heard that, yeah?"

The head Fae rolled his eyes, shrugged.

"So you know that right now I am the only thing standing between you and death. Will you tell us what you know?"

The High Fae glared, and said nothing.

Jenny leaned her great head down, eyed the bunch of prisoners for a moment, then grabbed the one standing directly behind the head Fae -- and ate him. It took a while, with much horrible crunching of bone and agonised squealing; Steve didn't move a muscle through the entire performance, and neither did any of the others. Dave went white, and had to swallow down an urge to throw up, but all they had to do was glance back at the hideous killing ground and suddenly the awful ending seemed almost appropriate.

Steve stepped up to the head Fae once more. "She's going to kill you all unless I stop her," he said quietly. "And it might not be just her. Pan's been desperate to get a piece of you since the last battle for the door - and Gem has a score to settle too. We all do, in fact. Will you tell us?"

"No," snapped the Fae, and spat on the ground at Steve's feet. He sighed, a sound of genuine sorrow.

"Bollocks," he muttered. "Go ahead, Jenny."

This time she pinned the unfortunate Fae to the ground with her claws, and tore pieces off him before eating them. Davey couldn't help it; he had to go and throw up behind a boulder. Steve knew how he felt, and even Bruce was rather green by the time this one was done.

_You humans have no stomach for this,_ said Wren. _And there is no shame in that. But I need to find out what happened to my people, and you are too gentle to be part of this... process._

Nicko looked like he wanted to argue, but the unicorn was absolutely right; he was a gentle man, at heart, and this brutality was making him doubt his own motives. He didn't want to hurt anyone, not really, and whilst one's actions in the heat of battle were one thing, this sort of calculated cruelty was quite another.

"Although," rumbled the dragon, "there might be another way. Child, step this way. I have an idea."

Wren looked at Nicko, then with a snort followed the dragon a little distance from the huddle on the cold mountainside. What they said to each other wasn't clear, but there was a definite lift to Wren's steps when they rejoined them.

"Gem and the goblins can watch the prisoners. There is one more thing we must deal with before we leave this place - and we must leave soon. Your military has spotted something happening up here, and they have sent - what is the word, child?"

_Helicopters._

"Yes, those. They are coming this way, and we must be gone ere they arrive."

Curious now, the little group of humans - and one forest god - followed the dragon and unicorn down to the edge of the killing ground. The other unicorns milled nervously just out of reach of the dragon, eyes rolling and hooves raising little clouds of dust as they stamped, but they held their ground before her.

"Dave of the magic," said Jenny, "come here. Place one hand on my neck, and the other on the child's."

Dave did so, although he felt rather awkward doing so.

_Here is what we must do,_ said Wren, and Dave sucked in a gasp when he felt the flow of information directly into his mind. The unicorn was showing him magic, old and powerful; this was raw and primal, magic that tapped the essential nature of the light and dark of the beasts on either side of him. It repeated, showed him once more, and he nodded at the unspoken query that followed this second demonstration.

"Sure," he said, even though his voice shook a little, "I get it. Now?"

"Now," agreed Jenny, and he took a deep breath, and began.

Above them, the sorceror began to howl.

~*~

Magic was - is - a strange force. It ties together the multiple universes that we know and even those that are merely speculated about; it runs beneath the skin of the world, and if one knows how to work it then one can change the very shape of life itself. Because everything is alive, or has been alive, or will be alive, and that knowledge lies at the heart of the power.

When the High Fae had sealed the door between Faery and the human world they hadn't stopped the magic, as it had been there all along; what they had done was stopped the access to magic, the flow of sense, the wild ideas that linked all matter and energy in the peculiar web that was magic. So once the door was opened again, the links began to reestablish themselves, and the magic flowed.

What Dave was doing now reached even beyond that. This was primal, this was harnessing the essential nature of the light and the darkness, the be and be-not of everything.

He linked the power of dragon and unicorn, and focused it on the sad remains of the unicorns that were hung out and left to dry in the keening wind. Hides and bone, blood and hair, strands of matter and gleaming white and silver stained dull with blood dried brown, all were touched by the stream of conflicting energies. They began to shimmer, lost their recognisable form and became energy; that energy coalesced into a hazy fog, which rolled ever tighter and swirled into a globe.

The human began to sweat, and even the beasts were breathing hard.

The foggy globe rolled tighter, began to glow from the inside with the harnessed energies within; Nicko gasped, suddenly reminded of the day of Wren's birth when his mother had breathed on the circlet of hair and made the bracelet he still wore. This transformation of matter was something he'd seen before, although the scale was different.

Dave let go of the beasts, and held out his cupped hands. The globe - no larger than a cricket ball now, although still glowing fiercely with that intense, silvery light - came to his hands, and settled into them as though it belonged there.

All three of them released an explosive breath, and shook themselves as though awakening from a long sleep.

"Fucking hell," breathed Dave.

"Quite so," agreed the dragon.

~*~

The High Fae glared at the strangely mixed group that climbed back up the mountainside toward them. A dragon, four humans, a forest god and a small herd of unicorns surrounded them, and this time they walked with confidence. Something had happened out of sight, and although they'd felt the magic they had no idea what had actually happened.

"Hold the artefact out," said Jenny, and Davey did so - rather nervously, as he had no idea what it was going to do. It could have been about to take his arm off for all he knew, although he rather hoped that one of them would have warned him if that was going to be the case.

"Now sing, child," she said to Wren, and he lifted his head and began to sing.

It was unlike anything any of them had ever heard; nothing like the whinnies and nickers they'd heard from him before, or even the ringing screams of fury that they remembered all too well. No, this was a deep, sonorous call, wild and free it rang across the mountainside and made the very air tremble with the echoes of freedom and beauty it contained.

The Fae began to writhe in their bonds, and then to whimper. The bright shine of the glowing ball rolled across them, and appeared to cause them physical pain; whatever the artefact was, it was devastating in its effect.

"It s the distilled essence of the unicorns that died," said Pan softly, "I have heard of such a magic, but never seen it done. Only the combination of light and dark - the darkness from which we all emerged, and the light of life itself - could create it. And right now it is scouring the souls of those evil creatures, and causing them," here he smiled, showing his teeth for the sheer pleasure of their suffering, "unimaginable pain. It is an honour and a privilege to watch," he finished with a bow to Jenny, who tilted her horns in acknowledgement.

"Tell us," shouted Steve over the coruscations of Wren's song.

"No!" shrieked the head Fae, and another of his lieutenants exploded into red mist at his side.

"Messy," observed the dragon calmly, and Gem chuckled her rockslide of a laugh.

"Fine! Yes! We'll tell you! Now make it stop!" shrieked one of the remaining two lieutenants. The head Fae spun, eyes furious, but the younger one dropped to his knees to plead with Steve.

"Prophet, we shall tell you all. Where they are and how to retrieve them--"

The High Fae shrieked again, tried to kick at his subordinate but he had rolled away out of range; maddened and raging it turned to Steve, and flung itself at him with murderous intent.

Its head exploded into shreds and bone shards at the close range shotgun blast. Steve might not have been able to kill in cold blood, but he could sure as hell defend himself.

The body slumped to the ground and bled across his boots. Wren stopped singing, and the glowing ball hovered before the unicorn; he moved his horn to point at Nicko, and it drifted across the intervening space before it stopped, hung in the air before the big man.

_Take it. You will protect our souls, my friend._

"Mate, I just - 'kin 'ell, Wren, are you sure?"

_We are. Take it, Nicko._

The hand that he stretched out trembled slightly, but the glowing ball settled itself into his palm and seemed to snuggle down, made itself comfortable. He stared at it for a moment, then carefully tucked it into his jacket.

"And now we need to leave," said Jenny, staring off into the distance, "the observers draw close. Prophet?"

"Steve," he mumbled, still staring at the body of the High Fae before him. This was the creature that had haunted his dreams, the one that had tortured Blaze so; the arrogant creature that had taken his wife from him, kidnapped his children - and so far, it had escaped every consequence of note. Well, fate had finally caught up with it - and he'd been the instrument of that fate, as ever.

He'd be angry about that, later, but for now they needed to get moving.

A gentle nudge to his elbow shook him out of his reverie.

"We must go."

He laid his hand on the dragon's nose for a moment, then nodded. "Right. Gem, can you carry the prisoners?"

The troll nodded, bared her granite teeth at the Fae, and laughed at their whimpers.

"Pan! You got the sorceror?"

"Right here, Prophet."

He and Davey scrambled up on to their dragon's back, and waited for Nicko to climb aboard his friend.

The steady thump-thump-thump of rotor blades became audible, and it was time to go.

_~tbc~_


	15. These Colours Don't Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dragons. The fuck was it with dragons? One minute they were intelligent, even good humoured; the next murderous monsters that destroyed everything within reach, like a crocodile with a blowtorch. And half a ton of semtex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Although this tale features characters that share an awful lot of characteristics with the individuals who go to make up the featured rock band, it isn't them. I'm fully aware of that fact; they're completely their own people, and this is a fantasy based on their stage personas, interviews and other material in the public domain. No malice or impeachment is intended to the band, their families, friends, management companies or anyone else involved with them in any way, shape or form. No money is being made from this tale, it's written purely for the enjoyment of the author...and her readers. 
> 
> It's fiction. Enjoy it as such.

**_~Chapter Fourteen~  
~These Colours Don't Run~_ **

It was a good job Steve had a very large garden.

And lots of outbuildings.

And, for that matter, a secure cellar.

"So let me get this straight," said Lauren, as she passed her father a fresh mug of coffee, "we have a herd of unicorns in the garden--"

_A blessing._

"What?"

_A group of unicorns is called a blessing._

"Fine. Whatever. A blessing of unicorns, a dragon in the barn watching four prisoners--"

"There would have been more but she ate a couple," added Nicko, helpfully. "And your dad happened to the last one. With a shotgun."

"--a sorceror in the cellar, a house full of goblins--"

"No _extra_ goblins, though," said Bruce with a helpful smile.

"--a troll guarding the door and you bloody lot in my kitchen?"

"Do I not get a mention?" asked Pan, plaintively.

Lauren shot him a very flat look, and he heaved a great sad sigh. Wren, watching from the kitchen window, snorted with amusement and Nicko grinned. They had just finished explaining what had happened to the ones who hadn't come with them, and Lauren looked to be on the verge of exploding; she drew a deep breath to begin yelling and Wren snorted, shook his mane and regarded her solemnly from the kitchen window.

_And I believe that a group of dragons is a dignity, is it not, Old One?_

Pan kept a straight face. "I think so. Always seemed like a strange word to use, though--"

"Will you shut up about collective sodding nouns?" she screeched, and the men managed to hold a straight face for another five seconds until Pan's guffaw broke them all into hysterics. Lauren steamed at them for a second, until her father's shrug and what-can-you-do? expression cracked her ferocity, and eventually even she huffed a chuckle.

"OK, fine. But honestly, dad, what happens now? If the police find out we're holding that guy prisoner we're in a _lot_ of trouble."

_Then they must never find out,_ said Wren, and Lauren rolled her eyes.

"Easier said than done."

They were interrupted by the dragon's face appearing at the kitchen window, a bob of her head leading to Lauren's unlatching of the door to allow her to join in the conversation.

"So who's watching the prisoners?" asked Steve.

"The goblins," said the dragon, "and before anyone objects, the goblins have less reason to love the High Fae than anyone else here - so I wouldn't be at all surprised to find evidence of violence when I go back out there."

"Getting back to the point," said Lauren, between clenched teeth, "what do we do now?"

"My children," replied Jenny. "They must be our first priority. We remove them from the equation, and after that," she shrugged, her scales scraping the edge of the doorway, "I don't care what happens."

_Typical dragon._

Jenny bared her teeth and for a moment the potential for violence hung in the air - until Nicko jumped to his feet and began to pace.

"Now don't start that nonsense, girl, we all know you're not the hardarse you pretend to be--"

Everyone fought to keep a straight face, as the dragon's eyes had gone very, very wide at Nicko's statement. Wren snorted amusement, until Nicko rounded on him and tapped the soft white nose.

"--and you're not helping, no you're not! But Jenny's right, we need to get her kids out of the way _without anyone else getting hurt_ and that's the most important point that I want you all to make particular note of. So if we sends Bruce back to the goblins so he can be ready--"

"What, not even one day off?"

"--shush, Bruce, Jenny goes to chat to the dragons, and once they're off doing whatever it is that dragons do then the rest of us goes over there and gets shot of the soldiers. They surrender, we send them all home, and that's an end of it. I think. Pan?"

The forest God - propped as he was against the kitchen cabinets in the corner, hooves neatly crossed at the ankle and large mug of coffee cradled into his chest - tilted his head as he considered their position. "If the dragons leave we will have a short time to get organised. The goblins under Bruce will be the main force at our disposal, but the remnants," and he swallowed hard, before continuing with no more than a slight catch in his voice, "the remnants of my children will be available. The other races are probably too far scattered to be of any practical help, but perhaps the magic users will be able to fight. Perhaps. Lord Davey will better be able to tell of that, I would think."

"So," said Jenny, the deep rumble of her voice cutting through the sudden chatter of everyone else trying to talk at once, "the next job is mine. Prophet, will you accompany me?"

Steve looked up in surprise. "Me? What good will I do?"

"A gesture of goodwill, if nothing else."

"Goodwill?" snapped Bruce. "They're _dragons_. Children or not, they'll think you've brought them a snack!"

"He will be under my protection," said the dragon, and she tilted her head to eye Steve, the slit pupil contracting to a thread thin line in the morning brightness, "and I swear on my life that I shall return him safe, even at the cost of my own life. Ask the child; I cannot lie on this."

Wren snorted, shook his mane and waved his horn in a tight circle.

_That... is true. Once a dragon gives her word, she is incapable of breaking it._

"Then that's set. When do we leave?" asked Steve, climbing to his feet despite feeling so afraid that he wasn't sure his legs would work.

"No time like the present," said the dragon, although the broad grin she shot the crowded kitchen was far less reassuring than she had hoped.

~*~

Everyone trooped out across the damp lawn to the open space behind the barn. Even the rescued unicorns gathered in a loose semi circle, white rimmed eyes rolled at the terrible form of the dragon, but willing to bear witness to the next act in this awful tale. Jenny stretched out her forearm and cocked an eye at Steve.

"Afraid, Prophet?"

He scrambled up the offered limb, grabbed the spiky scales on the back of her neck and threw his leg across, settled himself into place.

"I'd be stupid not to be, wouldn't I? How many dragons are there, anyway?"

"Oh, there's thousands of us."

_"What?!"_

She crouched, tilted her head to look up at the sky, spread her wings. "Thousands, Prophet."

"So, wait - what? I thought you said--"

"They are all my children. Hold tight!"

The sudden slap of her wings threw a storm of dust and grit into the faces of the watchers, but by the time they'd cleared their vision the dragon had spiralled up, out of sight and gone between realities. Bruce rubbed his hand through his hair, and let out a long sigh. The unicorns began to disperse across the gardens, the others returned to the house until only Bruce, Nicko and Wren remained, all staring up at the sky.

"Do you think we'll see them again?" he asked Nicko, who shook his head, expression shadowed.

"I dunno, mate. I mean, she's played straight with us so far, hasn't she?"

_But she is a dragon. And I am afraid._

The three of them remained standing in the drizzle, and watched the sky in silence.

~*~

Steve clutched at the scaled neck under him, and wished (not for the first time) that he'd been born into a boring, normal family. That he'd never heard of faery, or that the supernatural was something that you read about in books, or watched on the telly. Not, as it currently was, heaving between his knees, armed with sharp scales and wings, teeth like fenceposts and talons big enough to shred his flesh with almost no effort at all.

Several thousand feet above the ground, to boot.

"You are quite safe, Prophet!" cried Jenny, turning her head a little to catch a glimpse of the man that clung like a monkey to the back of her neck. She seemed to be hugely amused, but he was too busy not falling off to answer her. "Hold tight. We will be landing shortly," she called, then set her broad wings to bring them down into a long glide. Steve screwed up his eyes, peered down over a massive shoulder; he had no idea where they were headed for, except that it was mountainous and cold.

Jenny reared back at the end of the glide, backwinged to a standstill and flapped down the last twenty feet or so to land before she tilted her shoulder and assisted Steve to the ground.

"Are you well, Prophet?" she asked politely, and he leaned on the scaled hide, shut his eyes, and thanked whatever deity might be listening that they appeared to be down and safe.

It was quiet up here in the mountains. The wind was no more than a thin sigh amongst the rocks, their arrival having shifted some small stones and gravel in the natural bowl that they had landed in; it was cold and silent, the air thin and clean. It was similar to the place in his own world where they'd found the unicorns, but without the taint of blood and death that had marred the beauty of that place. This was untouched and still, bright under the blue bowl of the sky, and the gleam of the cloudless sun.

More of the heavy wingbeats began to make themselves heard, a sound like a bevy of swans approaching from a great distance. Steve straightened himself, dusted his shirt down and pulled his jacket around his shoulders; Jenny sat beside him, head raised and eyes fixed on the horizon. It wasn't long before dark skeins marred the mountaintops, swept along the rocky spines of the surrounding peaks and headed for the bowl where the dragon and the Prophet waited.

"Here they come," she murmured, then tilted her great, spiky head toward the man at her side. "Whatever you do, Prophet, remain calm. I will allow no hurt to come to you, but we can get rather... intense... when we argue."

Steve folded his arms and held himself still and stern, which drew an amused nod from the dragon.

The dragons began to land all around them, green and blue, gold and bronze, metallic and bright in the chill of the mountain air; none of them were red like the dragon at his side, and he stared at them as they assembled. Jenny waited, tucked her wings a little more tightly along her spine but kept her reaction to a small tilt of her head at the largest of the metallic dragons that moved to the front of the crowd, directly before her.

"Your Majesty," rumbled the huge silvery beast before them. Steve fought to keep his face impassive - Majesty?

Apparently Jenny hadn't told them everything. He wondered what other little surprises she might have in store for them.

She made no reply, just stared until the other dragon sighed down his long nose, then opened his wings and bowed his head in obeisance. She hissed, but bowed to him in return; she then stared along the massed ranks that lined the edge of the bowl, and Steve was treated to the sight of a vast number of dragons bowing to their Queen. Multicoloured wings gleamed in the sunshine, talons flashed as they ground through the gravel, spikes arched along necks that dipped in respect.

"We heard that you were," the silver dragon turned his head, looked at the sky, "indisposed. Were we informed wrongly?"

Jenny rose to her feet, lashed her tail. "You were. I was betrayed by my closest advisor, taken prisoner by the use of foul magics and held against my will in the grey planes."

A rustle, sharp scales and membranous wings shuffling in the thin air.

"I was freed by the creature you see by my side, the Prophet of Faery. He was the one who opened the door, linked this world back to the brightness of the multiverse; he is brave, clever as a dragon, and should not be underestimated."

"The grey planes _have_ no magic," rumbled another dragon, a large bronze with a great, twisted scar down his muzzle giving him the appearance of a permanent sneer, "so I do wonder how you were kept against your - not inconsiderable - will? Your Majesty," it added in an offhand manner.

Steve decided he didn't like this one. He wasn't keen on the way the rest of the dragons were looking at him either, and began to understand how a mouse felt at the mercy of a cat.

"The grey planes have _little_ magic," rumbled the dragon by his side, "and what they have was bolstered by a combination of High Fae, and our old enemy the unicorns. Their life force, when directed by the hate of the Fae, was enough to not only release us, but to take me prisoner. Although - as I have said - I was also betrayed by one of our own. Where is my darling daughter, anyway?"

A thousand heavy, spiked heads turned toward the sky, which remained resolutely empty of further wings. If giant lizards could shrug innocently, then the movement that sighed through the throng could be described as such. Jenny snorted, and even Steve twitched a smile at the profound disgust embodied in the sound.

"Now that you are free, we were wondering _why_ we had all been summoned?" said the silver dragon, after the pause had stretched out far enough to become truly uncomfortable. Steve was beginning to wish that they would just get on with it.

"It is not our time," replied Jenny, which brought another of those sibilant hisses through the scaled throng, "if we do not return to our slumber we will destroy until there is nothing left. And there will be nothing but scorched earth on every world, every plane, and we will have nought to eat but each other."

"As is our destiny," snapped the bronze. Jenny angled her head in agreement.

"But not now," she said.

The dragons appeared to think this over, muttering to each other in their complicated, sibilant speech, and Jenny settled back to her haunches.

"How long is this going to go on?" asked Steve, out of the corner of his mouth. Jenny let out a long sigh, and eyed her fellow dragons.

"Not too much longer. One of them will start shouting, my daughter will show up, and there will be a fight. I shall win, and we'll be off."

"That's something else we need to talk about," he grouched back at her, "I hate surprises."

"They keep us young, Prophet. Ah, here we go."

A green dragon had shouldered its way to the front, bright yellow eyes wide with what could be interpreted as fear - or fanaticism.

"It could be our time!" it shrieked, pale emerald wings reflecting the bright gleam of sunlight, "we could begin our rampage now, rule the multiverse, feed on these pathetic creatures until we have eaten our fill!"

Jenny rose to her feet, stretched her wings in a single flap with a crack of split air. She looked positively regal compared to the quivering green; she smiled at it, long teeth bright shards in the thin atmosphere of the mountain.

"But we are never full," she rumbled, her speech slow and measured, "we hunger. We _are_ hunger; when the flesh is satiated, we hunger for sheer destruction. We are the instrument of the end times, and we were born too soon. You know this, child, and so does she. Does she cower behind your slender wings, or will she face me here?"

The sibilant shuffling of wings and talons, shaken heads and rattle of neck spines rose like a wave, none of the assembled creatures able to simply sit quietly at the lash of the red dragon's words; while the cacophony rose through a roar to a bellow Jenny called to the silver dragon, who bowed and approached. She lowered her head to Steve, nudged his elbow with the tip of her nose.

"When it all - what is your charming phrase? - kicks off, which it most assuredly is about to, you should run to K'shreckt here. He will get you home safely, if that should become necessary."

Steve glared at her. "Hate surprises. Might have mentioned that?"

She grinned at him, and he sighed.

"Fine. But does _he_ know that he's not supposed to eat me?"

"He will," she said, then raised her head to touch noses with the silver dragon, and issue orders in a swift rattle of hisses, growls and clicking sounds that flew past Steve's ears too fast to break down into words. The silver tilted his head at Steve, blinked amused blue eyes at him, then shook his head and bowed to his Queen. He lowered his muzzle, sniffed at Steve's clothes, surrounded him with the dragon's breath smell of ash and sulphur, petrol fumes and dead meat.

"You will be quite safe with me, little Prophet," he said, and winked. Steve rolled his eyes.

"Just remember that when it all gets a bit exciting, right?"

A piercing shriek split the air, dragged the attention back to the cloudless arch of the blue sky; a further skein of dragons had soared close to the gathering, led by a red fully as large as Jenny, and shadowed by a dozen gleaming cohorts in colours of green and blue and gold. They made a brave sight there in the high atmosphere, but the red that led them was shrieking words that - even if you couldn't speak the language - were undoubtedly obscene. The slow grin that spread along Jenny's long jaw and showed all her razor sharp teeth confirmed that.

"Get ready," she muttered, then reared up on her hind legs and shrieked a high pitched challenge to the younger animal.

The newcomers swooped low over the assembly, the sunlight sparking back from their fury; some risked a snap up at them, others ducked and snarled their displeasure at the near miss. The red in the front spiralled up, set her wings into a stall, then plummeted down to land heavily in front of the older dragon - who did no more than cock her head at the arrogant display.

"Thou frog," snarled the newcomer, "released by an ape? I would be shamed to even speak to such a morsel, let alone allow one to touch our sacred person. Shame, for shame! No dam of mine."

Jenny growled from deep in her chest, and not since he'd first encountered the huge creature had Steve felt as afraid of her as he did now. The two dragons arched and posed at each other, each with spikes standing up all along their neck and spine, colours suffused with bright blood to glow in the cold bowl on top of the mountain.

"This way, Prophet," murmured the silver dragon politely, and Steve walked backwards - in as nonchalant a fashion as possible - until he was well clear of the displaying dragons, and safe next to the gleam of silver hide. "In fact," added the dragon, stretching out one front leg in a gesture Steve was becoming all too familiar with, "you'd better get up now. I can keep you out of harm's way far better if we're mobile."

Steve put one foot on the leg, then hesitated. "You know you're not supposed to eat me, right?"

"On my honour, Prophet."

"Fair enough."

~*~

It was quiet in Steve's kitchen as everyone waited. The coffeepot hissed and bubbled, Janick put the kettle on - again - and eventually Nicko could hold his peace no more.

"Bugger this for a game of soldiers. Wren lad, Christ, where's that pointy-headed horse when you need him? Someone open the window and give him a whistle, will you?"

Pan obliged, a wry smile on his face for the antics of the humans he'd thrown in his lot with. Within moments a white muzzle poked through the open window, dark eyes fixed on the broad form of the usually cheerful drummer.

_What's the matter, my friend?_

"We need to get moving! I can't just sit here. Did we ever work out where the other unicorns were, or have we all been in such a bleedin' rush that we haven't got round to getting some answers outta them High muckety-mucks in the barn?"

_Are you sure you want to watch? You are... a gentle soul._

"Ah, that's what we've got you and the others for, right? Between Pan, Gem, the goblins and you I reckon we should get some truth out of them, yeah?"

Pan was at Nicko's shoulder in a heartbeat, eyes alight with a dreadful eagerness. "I have been saying this for days! Let us go, my friend, and extract some truth from those murderous, lying, vile monsters--"

The tink-tink-tink sound of a butter knife being tapped on the side of a coffee mug dragged the attention back to the table, where Bruce was to be seen sitting with a tired - and very long suffering - expression on his face. He was getting rather fed up with being the voice of reason.

"We need to know what's happening with the dragons before we go charging off anywhere, Nick--"

"I didn't say anything about going anywhere, did I? I did not, Bruce, all I want is some information and now seems to be a good time to get it."

"And if the High Fae in the barn tells you where the rest of the unicorns are you'll just sit on your hands and wait, will you?"

Nicko looked at the ceiling, and went slightly pink. H scratched his chin with a chuckle. Pan opened his mouth to speak, shot Nicko a sideways glance, then shut his mouth with a snap.

"Exactly," said Bruce.

~*~

Steve gripped the scaled neck beneath his knees, and swallowed hard in the dry air. His mount took another hop backwards, spread his wings to steady himself and glanced back over his shoulder to check that his passenger was still firmly attached.

The fight that they watched was fast, and it was brutal. The two dragons were evenly matched in size, both protected by their natural armour; that they were designed for violence became clear the moment they began to battle and tear at each other. The younger dragon was a hair faster, but the older had the benefit of long centuries of experience on her side - and it showed.

K'shreckt sidestepped again, beat his broad silver wings to hop clear of the battling female dragons. He cocked an eye back at his passenger, and the vibration that rattled Steve's seat had to be the draconic equivalent of a chuckle. He gritted his teeth, clutched at his mount and swore again; the two red dragons spun and twisted, made impossible shapes with their bodies and flowed from one position to another. Long teeth clashed, fangs struck sparks from scales so hard as to be metallic, spikes drove gouges into the rocky ground when one or the other would be rolled over and writhed up again to fly back at her opponent.

"When does it end?" shouted Steve, waving his hand to catch the silver dragon's attention.

"When one submits," the dragon called back over his shoulder.

"Or one dies," hissed a voice by his elbow, and he glanced across to see the bronze dragon drop him what looked suspiciously like a wink.

Dragons. The fuck was it with dragons? One minute they were intelligent, even good humoured; the next murderous monsters that destroyed everything within reach, like a crocodile with a blowtorch. And half a ton of semtex.

A scream dragged his attention back to the blood spattered arena. One dragon pinned another, and it took a moment for him to see through the soot and blood and ash to identify which dragon was on top.

"Will you submit?" hissed Jenny, her eyes gleaming yellow in the dimness of the dust-shrouded sunlight. She had the other dragon pinned, one wing stuck up at an awkward angle, blood running from a dozen savage wounds in the scaled flesh. The dragon hissed and swore, but finally paused long enough to glare up at the other creature.

"Never," she snarled.

"Last chance. You swore an oath as a child, and repeated it when you came to your power--"

"Never!"

Steve would later swear that he saw the dragon heave a great sigh, a brief expression of great sorrow - and then she tore the throat out of her daughter.

_~~tbc~~_


End file.
